Summit for the Future (3)

Social software


Pursuing the theme of social software and user generated content, it was nice to meet Igor van Gemert again. He is a very motivated man. His company Innergy Creations BV (IC) is one of the business partners of the Summit for the Future. This innovative company develops new Internet and Multimedia driven products and services. Innergy Creations initiates and implements innovative business cases. We believe that business innovation is all about balance. Balance of vision, ideas, creativity, business, marketing, technology and the management of it.

Among the various projects he and his team are working on the launch of TVPiraat, a vlog channel with a business model. The channel is based on the principle that everyone can start his own TV station. IC will help the people to get online. You can compare it to Blogger, but than for video. Interesting is Igor’s opinion that the channel will blow traditional TV stations out of the water.

Igor believes that there is a TV producer in every one of us. I think that he is speaking for his generation which is more image and video prone than my generation, which is more text oriented. But the basic idea is that everyone can upload his movies or television program(s) onto the internet aggregated service. So if someone feels like a TV producer he will regularly upload his/her program. And as this service grows, people will start to look for new videos and shows on this service.

But Igor also realises that his service is going costs a lot of money due to the use of bandwidth. So he has to think about business model. On the conference floor of the Summit for the Future, he explained to some delegates that his business model is a bestseller model. People can step in for free, but as soon as they have success in terms of unique visitors and/or used bandwidth, the ‘producer’ will have to pay up or find money somewhere.

TVPiraat has not yet started it service yet, but it will be interesting to see its impact. Years ago the slogan: everyone can be a publishers’ was waved away by traditional publishers, but now there are more internet pages by bloggers than pages from traditional media. Also traditional television stations should closely keep an eye on this development. Of course the videos and shows will be rudimentary and primitive at first, but people are learning fast as is clear from Your Tube. And of course replacement of television shows do not happen overnight. But given triple play in the home it will be easy to switch from television shows to internet shows.

Tags: social software, user generated content

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