This Week on "A Translation of WireTap with host Jonathan Goldstein"

Alert! Three CBC embeds will begin to play on load - to turn them off scroll down.


This Week on A Translation of WireTap with host Jonathan Goldstein - I review the new "CBC Player".

The new video / audio player allows people to embed CBC content on their websites. These embeds can act as a portal through which users can transport to the CBC Player. In this case to the Wiretap Episode Archive: www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/WireTap/.

The new CBC Player - in it's radio incarnation - has two key issues:

1) Autoplay

The embeds begin playing with out prompt; which I will not have on my web site - except in this instance as it is a review of new technology. The reason I don't allow auto play content here is because if someone loads my blogs landing page, and this post is buried down on the front page - all three player will begin making noise and the user won't be able to easily find the off buttons - so they will 'bounce'.

I always ask the user whether of not they want content I offer.

WireTap | Aug 24, 2012 | The Lothario | 26:27 (repeat, season 2, 2006-05-14)

WireTap | Aug 18, 2012 | David Rakoff Tribute | 26:29 (new, 2012-08-18)

WireTap | Aug 10, 2012 | The Big Thrill | 25:20 (repeat,season 7, 2011-05-20)


2) Appearing / Disappearing Content

Above, the August 18, 2012 content embed will disappear in a few weeks - as it is CBC's policy with regard to this particular production (a Wiretap / CBC co-production) - that only the two most recent episodes are made available at the CBC portal. I assume that - in order to drive paying customers to the itunes download - some time soon this show will be taken down; thus rendering the CBC Player embed here dead. That's bad for readers who got here via search, because of the CBC Player content embed. An unsatisfactory dead-end to their search of CBC content is likely to leave them with a bad taste in their mouth, and thus less likely to continue from here to the CBC Player.

I think the solution to this conundrum is to recognize that the itune's pay market - as opposed to the market defined by other devices - other user 'place' experiences - constitute two different markets. The up-to-the-minute, always-on wherever-you-are, smart phone market has a immediate temporal quality that defines it's value.The archive of past shows has a different value, and should be priced (or not) accordingly - at the same time it is important to remember that the two memes drive each other.

Therefore, the architecture of this two-stream-content-matrix is to offer the newest episode to itune's customers for some number of days - creating a buzz there - and then present it at the CBC Player page, creating a secondary buzz which will amplify the first wave. And leave them up --- so, as new episodes become available at the Player - and in turn connections in the social networks are established - they stay established; and thus maintain their value in driving eyes to the CBC pages. Once users get to the CBC archives they are very likely to pay to listen to the latest episode on itunes.

I wonder if itunes recommends a multi-media architecture for content producers? I wonder if they insist on this kind of architecture?


That is all.

(translations may vary according to sub-cultural bias)



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