Big names get friendly with Social Networking

By John Newbold on Mar 6, 08 11:04 PM in Creative industries

So, another week's gone by and inevitably every other sentence I hear is still carrying the words 'social networking'. Working in digital media it's pretty easy to guage when a bubbling web trend has gone mainstream - it's the point at which clients start asking us if there could be a commercial application for it. The inevitable question being, 'we've heard about this and would like to use it somehow?'. Now, this isn't a criticism of companies looking to be innovative, after all that's what keeps us in business. It is however a pretty good signpost that often the approach with tapping in to these services is born more from a 'lets have a presence' approach, rather than a 'do we have anything relevant to say that would justify a presence' approach. It's on this point then that I watched a few key 'link ups' unfold this week which paired some pretty well known names with some equally well known social media networks. The thing that made these stand out for me though was the fact that rather than being cynical attempts to create revenue streams, boost a brand or generally exploit an existing service, they all represented pretty neat ideas...

First, on Monday, MTV and MySpace struck a deal to launch the 'MySpace Chart', a chart generated solely through users watching the MTV2 MySpace channel and voting for videos from the MTV2 playlist. As well as being a clear indicator that the way in which we consume music is changing, it's also evidence that MTV, just like the BBC (and pretty much any other traditional 'broadcaster' you'd care to mention) are quickly realising that their role in media is changing. It's not the first, and certainly won't be the last, example of a more mixed media approach to programme making. Aside from my own personal opinion that MySpace was probably the wrong place to do it, I really like the idea behind this new chart and will be interested to see where it goes.

Today it was the turn of the BBC to announce a link up with Bebo, this time arranging for an episode of the successful online drama 'KateModern' to be filmed during a Radio 1 Live Lounge set. The episode will feature a cameo from Radio 1's own, Westwood (cue the gun sound effects) and be aired solely on the 'Katemodern' page of Bebo. I believe that this again represents a really clever cross-networking of media services. The BBC as a brand casts a pretty wide net over what's 'up and coming' and so I'd imagine this sort of exercise represents them dipping their toe a little further in to online only programming. For Bebo, it's an opportunity to solidify an already successful format with a stamp of approval from one of the big boys. Again, one to watch (no pun intended).

Finally, and perhaps most interesting of all, tomorrow sees the first 'global takeover' of YouTube, with Icelandic band Sigur Ros taking over the entire front page of the site, worldwide, for 24 hrs. This 'takeover' is the culmination of an already successful YouTube promo which piloted a competition called 'Minn Heima', where fans of the band were able to create short films using audio and video clips posted online. Check out the YouTube front page tomorrow (Friday 6th) and you'll be greeted not only with the bands 10 favourite clips, but also will a full 97 minutes of footage from their new feature length music DVD. As well as taking over YouTube the band will simultaneously launch free downloads from their own site www.sigurros.com, creating a completely online audio/video/downloadable feast for fans across the globe.

Out of the three new partnerships I've mentioned here I think the YouTube takeover in particular could prove to be the most interesting. It doesn't take a genius to realise that one of the reasons Google were so keen to snap up YouTube is because of its distribution deals with companies such as Sony BMG and Warner Music. At the time of acquisition YouTube had only been running for around 20 months, but still commanded a purchase price of $1.65 bn. As such, I'll be watching with interest tomorrow to see both how the takeover pans out in terms of audience, and if the model is one that YouTube will run with for other companies over the coming months.