Syndication is the future...

I was reading this week that Virgin Media, Yahoo & Sky in the UK are planning to follow in Google's gigantic footsteps to develop tools to allow people to tailor & personalise their homepages in a (desperate) bid to generate customer loyalty....

My first thought on this is: 'why bother'?

RSS Feeds, Widgets and Social Network apps already allow people to source and collate the content they want so why would they want to do the same but be limited to the Virgin Media homepage or the Yahoo homepage or the Sky homepage?

Their goal is to encourage stickiness and boost interaction which in turn, they are hoping, will drive ad revenue. They have already tied in UK advertisers such as Money Supermarket and CareerBuilder to take the newly created commercial spots that fit in with the new design - but honestly, who wants ads on their personalised homepage? I certainly wouldn't....

I can understand their plight with dwindling audience figures and subsequent dwindling ad revenues - desperate times call for desperate measures but i am not convinced that the 'personalisation' of their homepages is the best course of action.

Now i am not going to claim to be able to solve the critical business issues these corporations are struggling with but what i can do is talk about an example of how another corporation has approached this issue.

The BBC is percieved as one of the most conservative corporations on the planet, yet they have been quietly embarking on an exciting strategic evolution which is quickly turning them into one of the worlds most forward thinking content publishers.....

In an uncharacteristic turn of events, the BBC have demonstrated an impressive and thorough understanding of our changing communications landscape.They have parted ways with their traditional british pride and relinquished control over their content.

Syndication and distribution is the new name of the game and the BBC are leading the pack. BBC Worldwide content is now widely available across the web which they have understood is entirely neccessary to reach potential users who are increasingly unlikely to come directly to BBC Worldwide’s own sites, however, they have also understood the potential commercial gains..

In February 2007 BBC Worldwide became the first global broadcaster to partner with YouTube, and in January 2008 it secured a worldwide deal with MySpace to provide clips of BBC content to MySpace TV. It also signed an agreement in the UK to sell BBC programmes on a download-to-own basis via Apple iTunes, a deal repeated in the US and which will be replicated in other territories around the world. Another deal was struck with Sony Playstation for Top Gear to be downloaded through Gran Turismo TV. Such agreements have helped to establish BBC Worldwide as a leading content distributor for both BBC and independently produced content on digital platforms and they do not require people to directly visit the BBC website in order to have a BBC brand experience...

So as i said, whilst i cannot claim to be able to solve the business issues that some content providers are facing i can attempt to point them in the right direction and that is away from trying to fence in audiences and away from requiring people to visit their websites directly...

For example - Sky does have some cool tools they are planning to integrate such as 'Never Miss' which launched recently - a TV reminder service to cater to its online subscribers to remind them to record their favourite shows when they are coming up - but i still don't believe they need to house this within a homepage, why not turn it into an RSS feed or widget that can be taken and utilised anywhere?

Lesson of the day: Capitalise on fragmentation and syndicate like crazy!