Thursday, August 12, 2010 at 10:30PM 
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In this episode of the Digital Media Podcast, Aanarav Sareen and Tim Gilmour from Dualform Studio discuss the importance of net neutrality as well as the Google / Verizon statement.
As someone who likes to travel, I’ve discovered the advantages of being a loyal traveler. Airlines and hotels reward loyal customers for their business. There are different tiers based on the amount of travel. A few of them include unlimited domestic upgrades, free bags, priority access, etc.
Similar loyalty programs should be adopted by media companies as well. Currently, very few media companies know about their “top tier” customers. In this case, media companies include audio, video (TV and movies), books and anyone who publishes content. Just like with every commercial entity, there are some customers who purchase more than others. Similarly, many of these customers bring in more revenue than dozens of one-time customers combined.
Loyalty programs for media companies will serve a few different purposes:
- Knowledge of top-tier customers.
- Knowledge of customers.
Currently, most media companies deal in the “millions of viewers.” They get audience statistics from 3rd party companies. These statistics don’t have any information about the actual customer. No name, no contact information and no geographical location. Implementing a loyalty system would solve this.
Here’s how it should work:
- User creates an account on media property’s site.
- User purchases content from media property and the purchase is automatically credited to a user account.
- User purchases content from distributor and enters in serial number on the media property’s site and receives credit.
This is not going to be an easy implementation. However, the rewards and results could be tremendous, especially in an age where customers can no longer be anonymous.
For the past week, there has been a considerable amount of buzz regarding Google/Verizon and Net Neutrality. Both companies have published public statements regarding their stance on net neutrality. We’ll discuss the specific situation tomorrow on the Digital Media Podcast. However, before we get to the specifics, it is important to understand the basics of net neutrality and why it is important.
Here’s how net neutrality is described on Wikipedia:
Network neutrality (also net neutrality, Internet neutrality) is a principle proposed for user access networks participating in the Internet that advocates no restrictions by Internet Service Providers and governments on content, sites, platforms, on the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and no restrictions on the modes of communication allowed.
Simple terms: Net neutrality means that all data will be treated equally. For example — if you drive car X and your neighbor drives car Y on the same highway, you cannot pay the government more money to go faster on the same road.
The same applies to data on the Internet. ISPs and other controlling entities cannot restrict access to content A because they produce content B. That’s unfair.
Net neutrality isn’t a major issue at this moment, but it is an important one to discuss now so that those that can influence such policies don’t implement disruptive policies. This is especially important for independent content creators.
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