Audio Interview. NRK CTO: Bring Your Own Brand

(c) MocoNews

We've already heard that major media companies and strong brands have a built-in edge when they go off-portal. (No-brainer: This is because users generally gravitate to the names they know.) But Bjarne Andre Myklebust, CTO of the Norwegian public-service broadcaster NRK, tells me broadcasters have a "special brand advantage" over operators and content companies when it comes to co-creating and cashing in on user-generated content. As Myklebust sees it, broadcasters – because they can offer users exposure across TV and radio – can give users what they want most: fame. "If users have good [mobile] content, then we can pop it on the TV or radio." For many users, that's a compelling reason to get involved.

Users are "itching in their fingers to actually participate in some way because the mobile phone is an interactive device.... If you let them interact with the content you will see that they will use the service for a longer time and also they will come and re-visit it and use it more often." The proof is in the numbers. Since launching the mobile TV service – which is essentially a Java client NRK developed with Ericsson that enables users to watch streamed TV programs live and interact with them simultaneously – usage has "doubled from the average of 2.5 minutes to 5 minutes of viewing." That total viewing time is on the rise, Myklebust says. Of course, it also helps that NRK's service is charged at a flat fee via Norwegian carrier Telenor.

Indie films from the source:
NRK's current mobile TV program, a music channel aimed at youth, allows users to interact with the programming by voting, sending text messages and chatting with the show. It's a bit reminiscent of MTV's Flux and other schemes, but it won't be for long. Myklebust is also gearing up to add user-created mobile video to the mix. "Some new shows will start up this autumn where we actually invite people to use some of our content and put it together [according] to a kind of theme" that NRK will suggest. Users will have the opportunity to enter their 90-second video clips in a competition and NRK will, of course, broadcast the winners. Myklebust is out to emulate the success of services like 3's SeeMeTV – but there's a twist. Users (at least in Norway) are so keen to participate that they'll do it for free.

Tools rule!:
What's better than letting users publish what they want? Providing them the tools and the guidance to do it on their own. "We are working on ... really making some good platforms and some good publishing facilities for the users where they can use their mobile phones as a camera and a tool for making different kinds of content." The result could be a "24-hour mobile television channel with user-generated content." Sure, operators have also promised to provide us with tools to capture and store the stories of our lives – but that doesn't mean content companies shouldn't join the party. "Basically it's about opening up and letting the people make the television [content] and the entertainment." Moving forward, "we can also take out the best bits of the user-generated content and put it on some of our other music channels....and we can get a whole lot of different content that we haven't been able to get before."

Rights are wrong:
Rights issues, not technology, make it hard for mobile video content to make the mainstream. "Some of the very big companies, especially the American based studios, do not allow us to use their content on mobile phone even though we are prepared to pay some extra to use it." Another headache is sports content. Sports rights-owners are splitting up the Internet, TV and mobile rights, forcing media companies to acquire each separately. It not only flies in the face of convergence. Having to purchase both Internet and mobile right is a "very expensive" practice indeed.

Audio:

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