Whether it’s “freemium”, tip-jar, VOD everybody is trying to figure out what the next business model should be? How do you think this issue should be approached? Go to the comments section to give us your suggestions and vote up your favorites! (BTW, you can log right in with your Twitter account)
Free? Contemporary Media Business Models
Saturday, November 21 – E51-345 (Tang Center – 3rd Floor)
4:30 PM – 6:30 PM
While the industry discussion has meandered from questions surrounding the validity of the ‘Long Tail’ to a debate about the notion of “free” and the generation of value itself – viable business models have begun to emerge. In these models, fan communities continue to figure prominently, as do monetized value networks and innovative advertising exchanges. Questions remain: How are these models different for the artist, band, brand, media text or transmedia property (print, film, tv, music, etc.)? How are meaningful relationships forged in an online culture that values non-monetary exchanges? How do these relationships benefit people and how do they benefit brands? How have fan communities responded when companies and brands try to participate in their communities? What is being sold? Content? Access? Authenticity? Notions of community itself? And how are fans and audiences being engaged to conceive of, launch, and contribute to the growth of these new business models?
Moderator: Nancy Baym- University of Kansas
Panelists include: Lara Lee – Principal, Jump Associates; Mark Zagorski – Chief Revenue Officer, eXelate Media; Seth Arenstein – Editorial Director/Assistant Vice President, Cable Fax; Paul Dalen – Owner, Reverse Thread
Hello,
I'm finishing my MA degree in Digital Culture in Jyväskylä University in Finland (after my BA in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and transmedia is somewhat a passion for me.
After I started working in Southern Brazil as a designer, I started my own .com company for fashion brands (the European heritage cities here have a fling for fashion). We decided then to work in two fronts: company/website. The company part works with print media (designing catalogs and look books, and building a mix of brand identity) and footage (we film the making of photo sessions and exhibitions for companies). However, the most fun we're getting from the website, which is virtually a non-profit activity: we photograph street fashion in order to capture the fashion identity of the region, we catalog students and professionals and invite them to publish articles on the site, we produce art photography of real communities (for example, skaters or break dancers). Everything converges to the same goal: to capture, solidify and export the region's identity in a contemporary, fast-forward and cool way, since there is a significant textile and clothing industry here that is gaining space in São Paulo, Rio and the national scenario.
We are now designing our own publication, CAPRICORNIA Fashion Trends Mag, as an online magazine designed to be printed in virtually any printer and (besides cutting-edge design!) will feature Academic articles, interviews and three different sections: global, national and regional.
With the income generated by designing brands and catalogs, we are now able to invest on the website and generate a free-cost product to the final consumer and, hopefully, to synthesize the spirit of the regional fashion in a way other markets can assimilate it – as well as the region itself, who can now look at itself using our company as a mirror.
I hope this can be a little example of how transmedia might be used in practice – I've read Jenkins' book in the MA and I knew there was something real that I could do out of it!