Why You Should Join Quora and What is Transmedia?

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Have you heard of QUORA (www.quora.com) and if you have but haven't joined, should you? Have you heard of TRANSMEDIA and if you have, can you explain what it is and how it differs from "convergent media?" When I decided to research Transmedia and better understand if it's an area of interest for my subscribers, instead of my typical Wikipedia research, I turned to Quora for answers, which I share below in WHAT IS TRANSMEDIA. But first, more about Quora.

Quora is gaining traction in my inbox with almost the same intensity that Twitter burst into my consciousness in 2007. (Jack MyersMedia Business Report was among the first to report on the Twitter phenomenon, (well before "twittering" was replaced by "tweeting".) I'm still not sure about the long-term sustainability of Quora. And I'm even more uncertain of its monetization potential. But those same issues still confront Twitter, and as a media/marketing/advertising professional, it's important that Quora and Transmedia are on your radar screen and that you're able to understand and explain them.

Quora, according to an "answer summary" on Quora itself, is "a collection of questions and answerscreated, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it. The main goal is to be the best possible resourcefor someone who wants to know about each question." Quora edits and curates questions to minimize duplication, avoid survey-style questions and manage your personal groups to enable others to follow your questions and answers and for you to follow theirs.

Adam D'Angelo, Quora founder, says "Quora is a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it. The most important thing is to have each question page become the best possible resource for someone who wants to know about the question." In response to D'Angelo's answer, Peter Baskerville, a Quora reviewer. advises that Quora is any and all of the following:

• Quora is an online collaborative information sharing and learning platform.
• Quora is an online engineering platform that connects the information needs of real people with information solutions provided by real people.
• Quora is an expanding, continuously improving, democratically ranked resource library that contains 'bite' sized nodules of highly contextualized learning.
• Quora is the mobile university. What articles are to desktops, Quora's answers are to mobile devices - the '1 minute' solution to the many daily questions we all have.
• Quora is 'just-in-time' learning. i.e. providing the specific answer that a person wants, when they want it and in the form and quantity they need.
• Quora is an online platform that is harnessing the power of technological innovation to usher in a paradigm shift in learning.
• Quora is a lead player in the global learning revolution.

If you are currently a Quora member and finding it difficult to navigate, as I am, avoid following too many members and try managing your feed. Also, read this Quora advisory by Daniel Shi. Also, if you have an iPad, you can follow Quora through my new favorite app, Flipboard.

WHAT IS TRANSMEDIA?

In the past few months, I have been hearing more and more about Transmedia, first from my colleague at Orb Media Group, Peter Shiao, who explains Transmedia is "an innovative, integrated and decentralized method of content delivery that takes into account the changes and trends of today's consuming culture." To gain a better perspective, I sought answers at Quora and received the following insights into the growing influence and impact of Transmedia.

Stephen E. Dinehart, Chief Wizard @ NarrWare
Transmedia storytelling is a new paradigm in entertainment that enables the imagination via story-driven extensions into a 'world' in which a player seeks to be further immersed. The keys being there - enabling the imagination and allowing the players to further immerse themselves where they have that desire. Transmedia storytelling is not marketing and merchandising based extensions into an existing franchise which is being further exploited. It's a narrative framework that invites the player in and allows them to co-create, if only through their imagination. Transmedia storytelling enables viewer/user/players to be, rather than seeming to be in this authored interactive world.

Adena DeMonte, Worked on CFG social media for Nokia
Transmedia storytelling is when you offer many different ways to interact with a story and even change the story. For instance, a transmedia story may have some of the story revealed in a movie, some on the internet through social media, and other parts taking place in real life via a live action game. Tim Kring (@TimKring), the creator of the TV series Heroes, is one of the leading thinkers in transmedia storytelling. Through my work as a community manager at Nokia and Nokia Point & Find, I was fortune enough to be involved in his pilot transmedia story project called Conspiracy For Good. I think we'll see a lot more of this in the coming years as technology advances and more and more of our media experiences are online and on mobile.

Leigh Himel, mom, writer, marketing exec
I would say that once transmedia gets some better branding behind it (clients hate that phrase), we are going to be a transformation of entertainment content, and the entire notion of branded content is going to explode in new and interesting ways. Now, the interesting part for me as someone who works in marketing is what role large brands [play] in this new story ecosystem world. The current business models aren't set up for content brand direct play – clients' processes cannot encompass this type of interaction - and finally, content creators don't want the integrity of their world screwed around with. I think at least in the next couple years it's where traditional TV budgets are going go to (bc they aren't going to go to Facebook storytelling ads that's for sure)

Dil-Dominé Jacobe Leonares, Transmedia Storyteller, Futurist
If you look at Transmedia from only a digital perspective you have already lost half the battle. Transmedia should be focused at delivering one single story on multiple platforms both using traditional and digital channels. In the past, marketing used to be above the line and out of reach, where digital has come in allowing measurement and analytics to come into play. Transmedia planning brings in the laser to focus and pin-point the areas where the best ROI is attained in regards to digital. In the digital eco-system which is ever changing and evolving on a daily basis, transmedia storytelling helps consistently provide a directive, allowing stories to be created where usually ideas from traditional TV campaigns have faltered. The film industry, much like the music industry, needs to cope with the seismic shift in attitudes toward the consumption of digital content. The tools, the processes, and the mindset of the consumers have changed from owning the content, to sharing and distributing digital content at the click of a button. It's this sharing and participating in a wider community that is also the heart of transmedia storytelling that seeks to move the consumer from passive viewer to engaged participant. To that end, transmedia storytelling provides a compelling solution to online piracy. DVD's, so long a cash cow for the studios, are now low margin commodities. Blu-ray, DVD's successor, has not captured the home audience's attention or their wallets. The consumer's choices in entertainment and multimedia channels mean that the film studios have to work more strategically to engage with their audience. "The model that has held the industry's collective imagination for the last few years has been media neutral planning. In essence, this is the belief that we should develop a single organizing thought that iterates itself across any touchpoint - this was a reaction against previous models of integration that were often simply the dilution of a televisual creative idea across other channels that it wasn't necessarily suited to." - Faris Yakob

As a result of Internet Piracy, it's never been easier to get film content quickly and easily by way of torrent sites. The studios' response was to employ an expensive litigation campaign against the file sharers, which has proven to be ineffective. The most compelling content should reach people wherever and whenever they need it, in whatever format they choose. Our transmedia campaigns tell stories across all platforms, channels, and languages, creating a multitude of entry points for consumer immersion.

Back to Quora, here are some of the topics I'm following:

What are the best practices for a media sales organization?

How much would users pay monthly for a Facebook premium service?

What are the main drivers of CPM rates charged by broadcast and cable networks?

What is a good estimate/best guess of broadcast and cable TV Upfront advertising sales?

How do we get people to want to buy in social situations... how do you see social commerce unfolding?

Who are the most innovative thinkers in media, digital and design?

What are the differences between the generations X and Y?

Are there any good studies on the increase or decrease in corporate productivity when a company blocks access to "distraction websites?" (Facebook, ESPN, Twitter..etc)

What is a typical average revenue per user for a Facebook (social) game?

Now that Facebook returned to use notifications as a legitimate viral channel (and not only for people who actually play the specific game), what are the engagement tools in the hands of game developers?

What is the best ranking algorithm (PageRank, ELO, ...)?

What are the best inexpensive ways to market a new site targeting New Yorkers?

Do behaviorally targeted banner ads positively impact customer engagement on sites?

Are there any equivalents of Nielsen in the UK that provide advertising data and media spends?

As a final note, here's what Wikipedia says about Transmedia storytelling. I'm thankful for Quora's content to help me shine a more illuminating light on Transmedia.

"Transmedia storytelling is a technique of telling stories across multiple platforms and formats, recognized for its use by mass media to develop media franchises.^[1] The Labyrinth Project's Marsha Kinder calls these franchises "commercial transmedia supersystems" in her 1991 book Playing with Power in Movies, Television, and Video Games: From Muppet Babies to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. She goes on to say "transmedia intertextuality' works to position consumers as powerful players while disavowing commercial manipulation."

In 2003, then MIT media studies professor, Henry Jenkins used the term in his MIT Technology Review article, "Transmedia Storytelling," where he reflected Kinder's assumption, via analysis of mass-market entertainment, that the coordinated use of storytelling across platforms can make the characters more compelling. Under the mentorship of Kinder, Stephen Dinehart, used transmedia storytelling as a development methodology, conceptualizing transmedial play and viewer/user/player (VUP). In the paper "Transmedial Play" he relates transmedia storytelling to Richard Wagner's concept of Gesamtkunstwerk ("the total artwork"). Dinehart goes on to suggest that unlike crossmedia projects of the past, in which IP crosses the media divide for purely product line diversification (merchandising), "true" transmedia is designed in preproduction with the intent of immersion rather than simply rehashing IP in post for maximum ROI.

In his book Convergence Culture,^[1] Jenkins further describes transmedia storytelling as storytelling across multiple forms of media with each element making distinctive contributions to a fan's understanding of the story world. By using different media formats, transmedia creates "entrypoints" through which consumers can become immersed in a story world. The aim of this immersion is decentralized authorship, or transmedial play as defined by Dinehart. Transmedia Storyteller Jeff Gomez defines it as "the art of conveying messages themes or storylines to mass audiences through the artful and well planned use of multiple media platforms."