Event Home | Agenda | Participants & Presenters | Day 2 Presentations | Three Minute Clips | Tom Warhover's Thoughts
Team KnowPlace
Presented by Chanmo Ahn, Bill Densmore, Beth Polish, Jennifer Volk, Matt Mantey, K.V. Rao, Jim Fitzpatrick and Kate Stam.
Text by Bill Densmore
Welcome to KnowPlace. Welcome to your knowable world. one Imagine an environment where you could have any digital piece of content that you’ve ever used, read, created in a place that was completely searcible, so you need to do a complete presentation on global warming and you know somewhere you read an article in your favorite newspaper or magazine on global warming and you could type into your little search bar and up came an article that you read before. So this is content that you’ve touched before. It would be kind of a pretty cool thing.
Imagine if you could in addition to that have recommendations for other types of content and it saw what it was that you were searching and the kinds of content that you were storing and uploading and it made recommendations to you for other types of content that you like. Imagine if you could share this with other people that you were working with or that you worked for or for your friends and it was all in one place and you had a little icon that was on your desktop or smartphone for the 17 percent of smartphones out there that have this capability. You clicked on it and up it came.
That is KnowPlace.
Other ideas from morning brainstorming session
Text by Dorothy Carner
### - Represents idea chosen for the group to expand on
News Sense – trying to increase market and increase revenue – come to Edmunds – have news – participating democracy – doesn’t pull eyeballs away from this site – share ad revenue.
Comments: Where would this appear? Product news sites – taking advantage of ecommerce sites. News that doesn’t go off the site – adds legitimacy – split revenue
Digitization of the news – transforming to service
Comments: Not a new idea - take it out
Micropayments proxy – test the micropayment regime – codeword to provide access to all sources – micropayment proxy to WSJ – register – automatically lets them through with a non-profit proxy (collecting data) short enough time – legality?
Comments: Research element is an interesting. We need data on micropayments. If made legal – how do you find the sample of people who would use it?
News service – text service for young people’s cell phone. International newsfeed targeting university students. Latest in current educational and informative news.
Comments: Bigger market size
###Opinion pool – reverse wire service – central service for opinion providers – pay a fee for rolling op ed (edited and valued) – editors can find pro/cons of opinions. Akin to an angel investor paying to read opinion sites.
Comments: (will the pay model work? Do this with PR Newswire)
Discovery -- Youth News Digest
Text by Bill Densmore
There's a market need for youth-oriented educational news, delivered to their smartphones. The idea is to put position news and information in front of them. Put it on a mobile application in front of the child. High curated, packaged editorial content.
- Definition: Application streaming news articles appropriate for 10-14-year-olds to their smartphones.
- Distribution: Partner with cell providers (e.g. Verizon) or phone manufacturer (e.g. Samsung) to preload and/or parents can load from App Store.
- Content: Contenet manually selected/curated with aid of automatic tagging/entity extraction extended with age-appropriate filters (e.g. reading level analysis). Initially, limited ot science. Editorial section rewrites selected article in age-appropriate fashion (e.g. digest such as The Week ... for kids).
- Purchase: Sell app/subscription to parents on basis of educational value by monthly subscription.
- Configuration: Parents specify areas of interest such as science, technology, etc. (though they can be modified by end users).
- Usage:
"We think this is a huge market and an easy sell," says team member Miriam Pepper, editorial-page editor of the Kansas City Star. The selling proposition here is easy: Resolve parental guilt about buying a cell phone for their kids by providing this educational resource along with hit. She says it is a triple-hit product. Sell as an ap, sell as an embedded addition to other apps.
- Market: Potential market is 20 million U.S. youth. If a teenager sends 6,000 texts a month, how about if she could look at the Science News app while she is on the phone? $240 million U.S. market potential if you assume $2.99 a month, $35.88 a year per month times 20 million teens. Studies find the 25% of parents are willing to pay for increasing their children's education -- that yields a target market worth $60 million.
One possibility: Cell providers/carriers could pre-load this onto their cell phones. Ad partners: Youth-oriented retail outlets offer bonus points for game/quiz victories. Baskin-Robbins, movie chains, Blockbuster, Netflix.
Q: Dubious about stickiness to get conversion to buy the product from schools or parents. They tried this in Tampa market and got 1.6 percent conversion.
Q: Beth Polish: She wonders about getting parents to part with $3/month.
A: I think your question shows how this is an open field.
Q: Dean Mills: Skepticism about whether a 10- or 11-year-old will uptake. They may just no take to it.
A: Miriam Pepper says you could push the news aspect, not the educational aspect.
- Prospective partner: MTV, making it fun and educational for kids.
Q: K.V. Rao of Zuora -- Why are you the owners of this space.
Rocky Kahn: Perhaps there is something patentable.
Q: "This will work in Korea or China. Not in this country, perhaps." It may be better for a 5-10-year-old group eager to learn in English and American culture.
Other ideas from morning brainstorming session
Text by Dorothy Carner
### - Represents idea chosen for the group to expand on
Need for an infrastructure service that addresses personalization, advertising, commerce, etc. one password, one bill – You would make money by sharing your persona with the web and share money - permission based personalized. Personalization – information overload – personal my library including archives, all experiences, indexes automatically – can retrieve information whenever you need to.
Comments: Technological hurdles. Have all research materials – metaphor – share, save, updates. Revenue stream – subscription based. To keep active link – have ad around the link. Personalizing news - storytelling services. Multilanguage - kiddy English, senior English – identify groups – customize each news story based on identity groups. Applications that might automatically translates – thesaurus translating across identities
####Interest in gaming technology to inspire people to do things – How do we take public spaces, online activities, local post points and having people involved in this to be participatory. Game to encourage news participation and community involvement. Four Square for news.
ARG – alternative reality game – scavenger hunt, participating in events. Volunteering – supported by news organization. Revenue stream – give away virtual points – reoccurring revenue – advertising around it and sponsorship. Individual locations – cross media. Points for subscriptions. Build with game design with participation in media – innate desire
Newsroom Cafe
Team members: Michael Skoler, Clyde Bentley, Stephanie Durand, David Cohn, Taylor Wiegert, Maria Garcia, Jung-Ha-Berkshire, Rob Weir.
Text by Bill Densmore
Turning coffee into community -- taking coffee shops and bring back a little bit of the community. Bring a young community of people who care about their community and the world. Values are that it feeds passion, intellectual stimulation, provides social capital, personal image/brand. One step beyond Starbucks.
- Target consumer: Is ages 18-34, interested in social issues and not afraid to speak out. It will be a public sphere like the old European tea salons. Young professionals, university students, socially-aware/curious, consumers of information, yuppies, creatives.
- Vale proposition: Feeds consumer passion, relates to personal image/self-brand, offers intellectual stimulation, provides social capital, allows for extended understanding of local and global issues.
- Values statement: We value creativity and public opinion, and support those who take the lead rather than follow from behind.
- Tagline: "An open space for open minds."
- Total market: $13.2 billion, 70 percent of adults drink coffee. It is 72 million people in the United States.
- Key milestones:
"There is a hunger to turn it into bricks and mortar." Coffee shops already make a 19% profit margin.
- Revenue project: Franchising fee of 5%; food and drink there's a 19% for food and drink, also putting on events, doing media products and co-working rent. Send reporters from news organizations to hang out at coffee shops.
- Business management team: Need a franchise business manager, coffee-shop business manager (relationships with coffee sources, buys and oversees distribution of supplies, oversees development), community-engagement officer, journalistic advisor and marketing manager. Show grow from a grass roots, word-of-mouth perspective.
- Competition: Biggest competition -- large franchise owners, however, Newsroom Cafe offers open, participatory. Starbucks has 11,600 stores, other competitors Dunkin Donuts, Intelligentsia, Bridgeport Coffee (Chicago).
- Challenges risks: Crowded market where incumbents are making a lot of money. But can offer distinct value proposition. You come into these coffee shops expect to engage. If you want to sit alone, go to Starbucks, if you want an environment where people are like you. There has to be a culture created around special employees -- baristas are going to be journalists who blog. Need to attract young people around discussing issues that matter to them, their lives and their community.
Skoler: "We don't believe that for a second, we just want to get them charged up in a great environment."
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:
There are "Newscafes" around United States, including one in Miami's South Beach.Answer: That will be sorted out somehow.
Bill Densmore: Says we've had discussions with the owner of Miami NewsCafes.
Q: Can you pay a blogging barista the wages Starbucks pays its baristas?
Q: Did you think about partying with Starbucks?
A: Skoler: The real model is in franchising and going up against the Starbucks brand. Can be monetized in a variety of ways.
Q: Could this work in anything other than a coffee shop?
A: They discussed this. Coffee shop kind of came to mind as the right density and atmosphere.
Q: Why age 18-34?
A: Needed a target market. Not about exclusion but picking a target market that already has the habit of going to coffee-shops.
"It's not about drinking coffee, it's about community but what we're selling is people who have the coffee habit.
Q: How will you control quality of discussion. So experience my differ from today to tomorrow.
A: Unique because it tackles this particular cultural environment. We will continue to adapt to needs. WE don't want to exclude anybody because of their opinions.
Other ideas from morning brainstorming session
Text by Dorothy Carner
### - Represents idea chosen for the group to expand on
Target people who read the news, but info gets lost in shuffle – Set up a profile – explains the impact of the news on the individual. Delivers news based on content that you would prefer reading. Delivers new content based on interest. News relevant to you – personalization.
Comments: Differentiation? Ability to get feedback if you are only looking at one intelligent news agent. Takes major news items that may not be interesting but makes the news relevant to you. Automated vs. manual
###News room café – can’t get into news buildings. Starbucks-like café – community events, community training – franchised. Sense of community. Contribute to the news. Meet reports on staff. Physically tied in with news building. Not limited to the newsroom.
Comments: Shouldn’t be tied to physical space. Events can be a revenue stream if they can leverage their physical space. Civic debates. Tech space uses this type of space use. Monetizing through communities that may not be there yet.
Personalized story – link between the world and you. Diaries, journals, link to what is happening to the world. Make an album of your life. Personalized journals connected to what is happening in the world.
Comments: Facebook does not have a history - Becomes a history book. Could pull from Facebook. Personal Wikipedia. Differentiation concern. Not a new idea – already in Seattletourning
Global Citizen
Team members included Jean-Raymond Naveau, Coleman Hutchins, Jim Sterling, Keith Politte, Alisa Cromer, Steven Sparkman and Washington Gikunju.
Text by Bill Densmore
A site that provides actionable news about global issues. Content comes from people, institutions, communities, corporations. "You are a global citizen and there is nothing you can do about that," says Jean-Raymond Naveau. "Butterfly provides actionable information, deeper planet possibility."
Information about sustainability providers, GRI taxonomy, news, issues, innovation exchange, products, applications for monitoring local, national and international issues, transactions that allow you to engage in a feedback loop, license content receive local discounts. Benchmarking.
"We realized there are really no global sources -- everyone is watching international news, but no one is looking at things on a global level, the superissues." Butterfly will have to cover 10 languages.
- Market: Who are potential global citizens? Guessing that it is 36% of global internet users is the potential market size, people who think of themselves as "Global Citizens."
- Audience is internet-connected global citizens, companies, staff, investors, fund managers, global-citizen related NGOs.
- Management team: They seek Arianna Huffington as a sustainability expert. Angels would be alMark, World Bank, WHO and Samsung.
No one out there doing this now. People are having to go to the Internet to piece together their news. (Viewing chart taken from the Pew Project on Excellence in Journalism.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
What would the three launch issues? Answer: Environment, government and climate.
Will you adapt content regionally to deal with cultural differences? Try not to appear too Western.
Hutchins: "We really want to stay above the national level."
Other ideas from morning brainstorming session
Text by Dorothy Carner
### - Represents idea chosen for the group to expand on
Data crunching – NYT have great visual data tools – lot of underreported data. Data can be brought to smaller newspapers – interactive widget for info delivery.
Comments: Hesitant to require newspapers - Don’t take money from a dying industry
Textual ad exchange – newspapers need to separate local and out of town visitors. Newspapers set up an exchange and bundle stories. Bundle content by subject, etc. – cutting Google out. Split among participants.
Comments: Yahoo is trying to do that – collecting this data for newspaper – but could be ok for other media - TV, Web, etc. Aggregating content would be different. Complimentary to Google’s contextual content. Aggregating for advertising.
My universe – provides context – pushes information onto my dashboard. Advertisement can target contextual information. Convenience because now I can get only what I’m interested in. I can give some information but not all – ad personalization.
###Global citizen – where is my global news – everything that is sustainable. Can be international, national, local – what is happening at this time. Aggregation of global information – personalized news – niche news. No global newspaper right now. Need a global publisher that affects the globe itself.
Comments: Great idea. Huge investment. Aggregate coverage already out there and may be individual comparable – Global Post – Boston. Wire service for international.
The Perfect Calendar
Presented by Marty Steffens, Jim Price and Jeff Vander Clute
Text by Bill Densmore
"Harnessing the power of local media." Extending the calendar application. It uses your already familiar application, like iCalendar, your Exchange or Entourage or Google calendar, and will populate it with things that will help you spend your day smarter, partner with your local news organization to give you the news that matters, be aware of local civic events, receive local and national ads.
- Consumer in control -- adjust privacy settings to your level of comfort.
- Key milestones .... many components already exist
- Register PerfectCalendar.com domain
- Partners include Columbia Missourian
- Work with partners
- Build technology in agile fashion
- Integrate with social tools like Facebook
- Integration with other technologies, like Outlook and Google, iCal
- Self-serve advertising modules
- Deployment, with milestones for sales, sales training, consumer testing, feedback, marketing
Self-service module that local newspapers can interactive with. Need knowledgeable publishers who can sell the product. Not just broadcasting but community members can upload events.
One idea in version 2.0 would be a "Pandora-like" service that would tailor and make recommendations.
Revenue streams:
Place ... time ... and retailer specific
Examples: Local coupons (merchant initiated), local coupons (crowd triggered), preferred location (need a place), classified listings. Ad day-parting. Sales reminders. Impulse-buy specials, local and national.
Competitors might be Yelp and Zvents. Differentiators: Facilitation with current calendar, participation, and being able to deliver news within the calendar function.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
COMMENT: Hates the idea of advertising sending stuff into my personal calendar. ANSWER: This will be opt-in as part of your privacy settings.
Other ideas from morning brainstorming session
Text by Dorothy Carner
### - Represents idea chosen for the group to expand on
###Perfect Calendar – communities are undercoordinated. People need help prioritizing their day. Lives and activities are uncoordinated. Integrated calendar. Calendarize your news
– integrate into iCal
Comments: A part of people’s everyday life already. RSS reader
###Refrigerator news – aggregates news based on preferences. Receive the news on the refrigerator. Control the news through our voice – smart engine aggregator – textual or audio. Say – headlines – text of scrolling headlines. You’re in control. Voice control – calendar – synthesizes software and uses voice interactive.
Comments: We like refrigerator news.
Slow news movement – so much out there and not always enjoyable – sometimes interrupting us - media café – receiving their news in physical place and discussing it - slow movement
Civic commons – people are often afraid to work through differences – manages conflict environment – where people could get together to moderate. Word cloud – to digital outdoor board. Smartphone ready widgets. Out-of-home billboards to encourage people to join the conversation.
Comments: Big, expensive, manageable?
NoSpam News
Group consists of Ochieng Rapuro, Jonathan Friendly, Yihu (Elina) Tang, Amiri Jameel Yehia, Phil Aucutt, Peter Meng and Margaret Duffy.
Text by Bill Densmore
Like Getty Images, a large content library that people can license.
- Peter Meng leads the description of NoSpam News. It uses a selected group of editors and marketing professionals using crowd sourcing techniques, to test and evaluate news stories for quality and marketability. Customers are ad agency and corporate partners.
- A global marketplace for advertises, news organizations and corporations to purchase content and obtain real-time market data.
- Uses a select qualified group of editors and marketing professionals using crowd-sourcing techniques, to test and evaluate news stores for quality and marketability.
- Revenue comes from testing fees, royalties and premium-content sales. Assumption of 8000 transactions in the first year.
- Competitors are traditional market research, Digg and Seed.com/Helium.com, Demand Media. They offer classic research, but that is time-consuming and costly. They work with crowd-source ranking and are an outlet for paid and edited freelancers. NoSpam News costs less, is easier t use and takes a different approach. It doesn't pay freelancers. It ensures the content is of the highest level.
- Challenges and risks -- Big challenge is signing the one content partner with a large content library and then building a user base fast so as not to be out-innovated or overtaken by innovators. Also a challenge to match revenues to market-research spending through 2014.
- Strategic partners sought: RJI, The McClatchy Co., Clear Channel Communications Group.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Question about monetization: Big play is to have it an easy marketplace to get all kinds of content. A place to easily and cheaply license content rather than just ripping it off.
Other ideas from morning brainstorming session
Text by Dorothy Carner
### - Represents idea chosen for the group to expand on
Innovations for underserved markets – Aspirational immigrants. Portal serves underserved markets – immigrants, seniors – integrates advertising, integrates services, aggregates content. Trying to make it easier (single sign on). Referrals, sponsorships for obits. Multilingual.
Comments: How do we know how they’re getting their news. Relationship with ad agency segments immigrant population (global advertising strategies) – successful segmentation opportunities. Populations aspirational and want to know what is going on in their former communities.
Reporting service for underserved markets for undeveloped countries – twitter, audio, etc. pushes to aggregated site, integrated advertising system. Capture, presentation all mobile based.
###Survivor for news content – Rated by editors for content and quality and ranked by ad revenue. Tagging – paired with advertising.
Comments: Ability to use Google data for benefit – resources that could be used. Closed community. Hacker news? Sell access to filtered news. Forming an editorial board and getting paid for selections. Creating or curating? Runs the risk of being undifferentiated.
Microblogging based advertising system for mobile – Create classified ad and create micropayment and refers to other sites. Comes with a subscription from news agency.
