The Relevance Of Relevance

What does streaming media have to do with relevance? Well, IMHO-in the near future-everything.

In the early days of streaming, we saw many vertically focused content providers create "channels" and "made for the web" content. I was a senior manager at one such company-way back in the late 90's. Great content was created-but because broadband proliferation hadn't exactly lived up to the prognostications of various analysts...ugh...nobody...well, almost nobody...knew. For those bleeding edge streaming swashbucklers who had a voracious appetite for any streaming content...the fare consisted of postage-stamp-sized digital horse'dorve's (is that how you spell that?)...not the type of content we see today.

Fast forward a decade, and my company is pumping H.264 live streams to desktops, laptops, digital signage, iPhones...even 60 foot theater screens! The bit rates are now pushing well beyond the "broadband" streams of 1999 (around 300k for the really big consumer pipes of the day)...today, we speak in M's not K's. The point is that the pipes have gotten big enough so that content can now reach nearly anyone on the planet. But wouldn't it be better if that content reached viewers for whom it was highly valuable, meaningful and....here comes that word: Relevant????

That, my friends, if I may be so bold to play an encoding Edger Cayce...is where streaming media is headed. In the next decade, it won't be that you can reach an audience that will be most impressive...it will be how well you can reach an audience for which your content is highly relevant...that will win you the blue ribbon.

Guy comes home at night, walks into his house where he has 20MBIT speed down from his ISP. He's got the incoming wires or wireless...hooked to every appliance with a screen. But, since he only has two hours a week to spare...or just 30 minutes twice a week...he wants to make sure that his viewing time carries with it an extremely high ROI. He wants a relevant viewing experience. And guess what? Because the content that the matchmaker software he has tied into his TV has is tied to more demographic and behavioral data than the U.S. Government has on him, the system has lined up his programming choices from top to bottom based on how relevant it is for him when measured by that data. Since this data is constantly updated...a more granular profile of this "guy" is developed over time. Hence, his viewership experience becomes increasingly less frustrating over time as he is presented with media that he is very eager to see (because it is highly relevant!).

What does this mean where revenue generation is concerned? Well, CPM's become, dare I say...irrelevant! Why? Because if I'm a maker of fine ties...and I'm putting my ad on whatever the service is that's pushing this content to this "guy" via that broadband streaming system that's tied to that wacky relevance-machine...I am willing to pay a premium...not for numbers of eyeballs...but for QUALITY of eyeballs. "Mr. Advertiser, would you like our pewter package that will blast your video ad to one million completely distant and luke warm mothers of three who are suffering with overwhelming credit card debt. Or, would you like our platinum package, which will make sure your ad for ties plays in front of a much smaller number of metro-sexual guys with a tie fetish who are rich and love to watch clothing design content and repeated re-runs of "American Gigolo"? Hmmmmm? We have a new term: CFR. Cost For Relevance.

So, there you have it. In the future of streaming media, there's more going on than just being able to get content to any device. "Who's" device will be the next measure of success. And that is why relevance...is relevant!