David Putnam’s keynote was an excellent introduction to the changing media landscape. He really gets the excitement of the internet. I thought this was interesting:

Five years ago a functioning TV studio would have cost £800,000. Now it costs approximately a quarter of that. A camcorder you can buy from Dixons today is higher resolution than anything the BBC owned in 2000.

Like many people Adam Gee from Channel 4 is not a big fan of the phrase 'user-generated'. He loves the idea behind it though. When he made a list of 8 projects he was excited by, he realised all of them had a user-generated element. Ones he mentioned include:

• 1-2-1: co-authored international blogs
• Germ: UK’s first competition for viral digital content (got good press)
• Lost generation: people can add media of all sorts
• 4Docs: high-end user-generated content
• 4Laughs (forthcoming): talent discovery in comedy

I was hugely impressed by Steve Cullen and the guys from someth;ng. For the festival they had created a system that allows a user to bookmark a moment in time and space via a RFID tag. It matches you with people who have gone to similar events at similar times. It’s fun, it’s cool and it might even be useful. What is more, they had built the system from scratch in 6 weeks. Great work, lads.

Over the last month a whole raft of user-generated TV initiatives have been announced. For example:

• Flextech have launched Trouble Homegrown.
• MTV have announced they'll be launching an 'audience-controlled channel brand'.
• Both BBC and Channel 4 announced user-generated comedy sites.

At an industry event I met a man who claimed: "Porn used to be the highest margin content in the world. User-generated content is higher."

If this is true, it's clear why broadcasters want to get involved... but what will distinguish the winners from the losers?

Time will tell, but here are some thoughts.

1. Make the question interesting What motivates a user to create and upload content? There is the YouTube approach - create a giant area for all types of content.

There is also a more niche approach - combine user-generated content (UGC) with a TV show that focuses the desire for users to contribute. We believe this is a rich seam. We've been talking to TV producers and broadcasters as we launch BloomBox and it seems the possibilities are almost endless. UGC could well be the next wave of reality TV.

(This iMedia Connection article demonstrates five contrasting approaches to framing the question for user-generated advertising.)

2. Ease of use Vimeo set the standard for uploading and previewing clips. YouTube gets our vote for community features, helping the user get widespread viewership of his clip. I'm yet to see a broadcaster's UGC initiative that can match these.

3. Network effects - success breeds success Lots of bytes have been spilt trying to explain MySpace's success (here's a good article). I'd wager that networks effects are the most important. Content creators want an audience. Popular sites become more popular. (To demonstrate, MySpace isn't the social networking leader everywhere. It is trounced by Orkut in Brazil and Bebo in Ireland).

This post wasn't supposed to be an advert but the first two factors show where BloomBox excels. BloomBox removes the technical hassle from user-generated content, freeing producers to make the question interesting. It's ease of use, as we will be able to reveal soon, is excellent.

Get these two right and the compounding reward of network effects will kick in. You'll be as rich as a porn king.

Extra reading: Cracking NY Times article on some of the dangers of user-generated advertising.

One of our greatest cheerleaders but also greatest critics here at Mint is one Paul Fisher. Paul has moaned about our website forever and we seemed destined never to please this discerning web connoisseur (Fisher is to websites what Michael Winner is to restaurants). Until now that is!

Paul loves the new Mint site so much, he is going to spend the whole weekend looking at it on his widescreen laptop.

Our next challenge: to try to get Paul enthusiastic about going to the theatre (something else he traditionally doesn't like).

We've just got back from MipTV in Cannes where Mint won its category in the Content 360 competition. It was a hugely exciting week - we spoke to lots of people who were enthused by our entry Buried Alive and who had interesting ideas for how to extend the concept.

Gary Hayes from the Laboratory of Advanced Media Production, Sydney said Buried Alive was the "best project from all the pitch sessions as it really combined user generated, community, rich media and potentially mobile". Shockingly he also claimed Mint Digital was a "nice company".

Other highlights of the week include: 1. Getting a mention on the back page of Broadcast for a 'kerfuffle' involving 3 confiscated passes.

2. Tim's over-excited acceptance speech. He called David Frank, Mint's chairman, 'the greatest man in television'.

3. A glowing write-up from Il Manifesto (login requred, surely not a problem for our predominantly Italian communist readership).

Make sure the branding is on message.

A couple of time clients have requested that we make their homepage short enough so you can see the whole page without scrolling. Well, I like longer pages but I'd never spoken up, worrying that it is that just personal preference.

Then I read

Then I noticed:

It take 50 milliseconds for someone to decide if they like your site.

I wonder if that is why of all the sites we've made, it is the one with the simplest front page (Nudo Italia) that users get most enthusiastic about?

A lovely little article on starting a software business. Man, Joel Spolsky writes well. (My dad gave me this doorstep by Alan Bennet for Christmas as an example of "wonderful writing" but Bennet's prose is so pedestrian by comparison).

"It wasn’t that I was anti-popular culture or anything and I had no ambitions to stir things up. I just thought of mainstream culture as lame as hell and a big trick" says Bob Dylan in Confessions.

The web makes media less lame. Umair Haique explains theoretically why this should be and demonstrates that it will be a permanent effect: The New Economics of Media(long PowerPoint presentation). In short, the web increases the returns on investing in quality content and reduces the returns on marketing it.

John Battelle confirmed this theory anecdotally. Asked, "How do you market content in the new economy?" he replied "You can't (except for a little bit of AdWords), you've just got to make it as good as possible and hope it spreads."

(Link via: Paul Fisher)

The Nudo site is New Media Age site of the week. Thanks!

like Flickr for music, but better... absolutely brilliant

http://www.last.fm

A breathtaking website.

Strong use of photos. Lovely, slightly unusual, shopping basket.

The Click #19

I have always shied away from writing about Search Engine Optimisation. (Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO, is work done to make your site come higher up in the results of Google or other search engines.)

It takes a long time for SEO work to have an effect and you can not predict how beneficial it will be. Combine these two, and it makes for a murky world full of dodgy "First p1ace on GOOGLE!!" promises.

However, recently a couple of clients boosted their businesses dramatically through improving their visibility on Google. This made me think I should share what little I know.

Then I thought, better to get the opinion of a real expert. Richard Day came first in an SEO competition organised by .Net magazine. He is a true professional. Here is how he answered my questions:

1. What is the easiest way to improve your search engine ranking?

Get some links of the right type. That is links from pages on other sites that are both highly regarded by Google and on a similar subject to your own site.

2. How long does it take to see any beneficial effect from SEO?

Sometimes just a few days in Yahoo and MSN, but often many months in Google.

3. There is lots of chat about link swaps. Some people say Google will see through it if you link to a site in return for that site linking back to you. What do you think?

Link swaps can be good, if the sites have related content, and will not be bad unless your site links to a "bad" site (that is a site that Google suspects of trying to manipulate search engine rankings unfairly). Link swaps between wholly unrelated sites are probably worth little. If a link provides benefit to your visitors, then it is a good link.

4. With SEO work, I have always worried that you are at the mercy of Google changing the way it values sites. Is this a concern?

If you have content good enough for other sites to want to link to you without reciprocation, then no. Otherwise, you are always at the mercy of changing algorithms to some extent. But Google will always need to look inside your site to see what it is about - so "optimising" your site so that its subject area is clear to Google will always be good. And if sites which are "authorities" in your field link to your site - that will always be good.

5. What do you eat while doing SEO work?

Sprats.

6. Hypothetically, if you were hiring a company to help you with SEO what would you look for?

There are a whole bunch of things to watch out for [check this for the full list http://www.beaufortweb.co.uk/article-3.htm] but in short an SEO should not try to "cheat" the search engines. For example they should not create deceptive or misleading content and they should not create hidden links. Both of these were once effective but now may well get a site blacklisted.

7. By how much should a SEO be able to improve your rankings?

It depends how competitive the chosen keywords are. In some cases it may be more cost-effective to spend money on sponsored links (like Google AdWords).

8. How do you discover what SEO techniques work? Is it trial and error?

There are some good forums (especially http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/) and some good books. Also, we have learned through experimentation.

My conclusion: ride to victory with the good guys

There has always been a crooked side and a honest side to SEO. The crooked side - trying to manipulate search engines with fakery - does not really work anymore. The virtuous side is winning hands down. This is great news for everyone except the SEO Cowboys.

Honest activities include making your site clear for search engines and trying to persuade authoritative sites in your field to link to you (this is what worked for our clients mentioned at the start). However, paramount - as search engines get cannier - is to make your site worth visiting. Now, apologies for the extraordinarily blatant plug, but who better to help you with this than Mint Digital?

We are looking for a hugely passionate web designer with 1-3 years experience. Must be inventive, humorous and mad keen on using the web to communicate. Will be expected to do all sorts of jobs brilliantly. Experience with Photoshop and HTML essential. PHP, MySQL, Wordpress or similar would be a plus.

Great creative environment. We always stop for lunch.

Salary: £20-27k depending on experience.

Location: based in Vauxhall (we are moving there next week)

Please send a CV and a covering letter to jobs@mintdigital.com

Warning: this Click is entirely self promotional. Feel free to delete it immediately.

Many companies invest heavily in getting you to their website and then aim to be as boring and straight and uncontroversial and unmemorable as possible once you get there.

I think this is a good use of Salesforce's homepage:

The Click #18

Warning: this Click is entirely self promotional. Feel free to delete it immediately.

Last Click I was prattling on about the importance of prices on a website. Half way through I realised our site totally ignored all the advice I was giving. A bit further on I was hit by an idea so momentous that I was worried it was a brain spasm. I checked with my partners. They said it wasn't. So here goes:

Mint - take it or leave it

For £450 we'll mock you up a new home page.

What's the big idea?

Many people we meet know their website isn't up to scratch. A major stumbling block to improving the situation is the fear that a new one won't be any better. Or, more precisely, that it won't be sufficiently better to justify the expense.

This frustrates us. Every single client we've had agrees that their site has been, at the very least, a very worthwhile investment.

So we want to remove the fear from commissioning a website. The plan is we have a chat on the phone and then create you one home page redesign. This allows us to you show how much better your site could be, without you having to make a big commitment.

As part of the deal, we ask for an hour of your time to pop in and discuss what we have created. (A mock-up inevitably has loose ends that are best discussed round a table.)

What then?

Well, the choice is yours. We can discuss how we'd take the design and make a site based round it. Or you can take our ideas and use them yourself.

Or, if you don't like it all, you can walk away (well, we'll walk away). It is called 'Mint - Take it or Leave it' because if you (really, truly) don't value it, you don't have to pay us a penny.

What could be less risky than that?

Sign up now! Email andy@mintdigital.com or call 020 7193 7312.

"SaveMyAss is a personal assistant that keeps your girlfriend or wife happy by sending her flowers on your behalf, on a regular but semi-random basis." - http://savemyass.com/

The one bit of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style that is widely remembered is 'Omit needless words'.

I've often tried to apply this principle to design.

It's nice to hear a different perspective. Yagoda notes (quoted in the fab FT magazine), Strunk and White's "implicit and sometime explicit goal is a transparent prose, where the writing exists solely to serve the meaning, and no trace of the author - no mannerisms, no voice, no individual style - should remain."

"We think of shopping as basically an application of search" says Jan Pedersen at Yahoo (quoted in John Battelle's new book. Cracking excerpt in the FT).

It reminds me of Marc Andressen saying years ago that Netscape would "reduce Windows to a set of poorly debugged device drivers". It sounds right but its going to take a while to figure out what it means.