m4Lit strategy ideas from Geek Retreat

At the Geek Retreat at Stanford Valley Lodge I brainstormed two key questions for the future of m4Lit. The idea generation was awesome (despite some Geek Retreaters being wildly hungover). Below is what we came up with.

1. How to grow Kontax? How to make it more “sticky”?

• Learn from the Disney model: create characters as a brand in one channel, then take across multiple channels, e.g. TV, radio, merchandise.
• Refer a friend / invite a friend.
• Advertising: advertise in top youth sites (mobile and web) and MXit. What about Mig33, The Grid?
• Campaign with youth brands, e.g. Levis or Coca Cola. Cross over from m-novel to physical product, e.g. Coke can, or virtual merchandise.
• Run competition in schools, e.g. write a story or remix a Shakespeare dialogue. Competition where they draw the characters.
• Incentivise viral marketing behaviour:
• Readers get points when referring friends.
• Or they get something of value, e.g. a wallpaper for download after referring 5 friends.
• If we publish a Choose Your Own Adventure style story, when arriving at the end of a particular branch of the narrative, send that to a friend, e.g. “This is how my story ended — how will yours end?”
• Quiz at the end of a chapter (this is also applicable to the Education version of the mobile library). Have a game aspect, e.g. a leader board.
• Facebook:
• Have a presence on FB using the Fan feature.
• BUT it’s very easy for users to forget they’re fans and not revisit that page, so the story or site must give a reason to go to the Fan page, e.g. for the inside scoop on an event in the story or extra wallpapers.
• Put up images of Kontax and tag them.
• Write an app that allows users to read the story on FB; when adding the app invite friends; and when the user interacts with the story to post those activities into their newsfeed (status, profile, wall) so that all of their friends see it.
• Host story multiple platforms, e.g. www.obami.com.

2. How to monetise Kontax?

• Digital is free, pay for print (from print-on-demand service).
• Merchandise! Virtual merchandise (paid for), e.g. ringtones, wallpapers, gossip channels.
• If we charge for one story, e.g. 2010 Action, then don’t charge for the story alone but bundle it with a ringtone. Or buy a ringtone and get an alternative ending to the story.

A general suggestion: Make the story multidimensional, e.g. story links through to images, videos, chat, etc.

Overall, the weekend was great for networking, putting faces to Twitterer I follow, hearing about very cool projects — such as Cognician — and getting ideas for projects. I’ll definitely attend future retreats. See photos from the weekend.

On txtng and language

In a 2007 article titled Has txt kild the ritn wd?, Geoff Strong (writing in The Age) makes a delicious contribution to the txtng and language debate.

Firstly, he describes the result of txtng as “an emotionally stunted, encrypted creole that has left language purists reaching for their smelling salts and linguistic adventurers salivating.”

Secondly, Strong quotes RMIT University’s Julie Faulkner, who studies trends in popular culture, to highlight the long history of coded communication in the English language: “The implication is that the language of Shakespeare has witnessed a decline but isn’t Shakespeare as heavily coded a form of communication as txt itself?”

Lastly, he says: “Linguistic puritans might moan and long for a golden era of “proper” usage but they forget Shakespeare invented every tenth word he wrote and we still use many of them daily from aggravate to homicide and submerge. Others he invented such as “tortive” meaning twisted and “vastidity” meaning immensity have dropped out of use. Unhandled exception and p(^-^)q could well suffer the same fate.”

Language is constantly changing, increasingly influenced by the medium of communication. Txtng is undeniably a part of that change, whether for the better or not.

Coverage of Kontax (part V)

The most recent coverage of Kontax has been on the Soul Beat Africa site (from December 2009).

Kontax wins a Bronze @ the Bookmarks

Kontax won a Bronze “Pixel” in the Bookmarks Awards, the only medal in the Mobile Publishing category. Kontax “beat” M-Net, Football365, EntertainmentAfrica, CAR magazine and Soccer-Laduma, which is the most visited mobisite in South Africa. One of the competition organisors told Steve Vosloo that Kontax won a medal because it showed creative thinking and innovation in its category.

This year, as with last year, no Gold or Grand Prix prizes were awarded — a message to the local industry that we’re getting there, but have some way to go yet. According to 24.com, “The total number of awards made was 25, amounting to a fraction over 1% of the entries” — so competition was stiff.

Once again, well done to the Kontax team!

For more info see the list of the Bookmarks Finalists and winners. BizCommunity covered the awards ceremony — looks like lots of fun was had by all.

Coverage of Kontax (part IV)

Coverage of Kontax continues as follows:

Web:

• Mobile novel a hit with SA youth (South Africa: The Good News, 2 Nov)

Newspapers:

• Mystery on your phone by Estelle Sinkins for Weekend Witness, Kwazulu-Natal (7 Nov)

Is 4,000 reads a lot?

Kontax has been read by 4,000 people in it’s first 10 days on MXit. I asked a friend in publishing to put that figure in context in terms of regular teen books sales in SA: is that low, high, ok? While we can’t really compare m-novels to printed books — they’re so different in so many ways — her response is still very interesting:

I can’t testify about teen books in particular, but a typical trade book first print run is 3,000, and a book publisher is usually satisfied if that sells through, particularly for fiction. Figures are much higher for prescribed school books of course, but you’re talking about a voluntary sign-up here. Also, you need to consider the time-frame: the equivalent of 4,000 copies ’sold’ in less than a month? A publisher might expect that kind of performance over a year to 18 months.

I think this project overcomes so many of the problems of book publishing (language, relevance, distribution, cost) that comparing it with book sales is the ultimate apples-and-oranges. But, as a book publisher, I’d be seriously impressed with these figures.

m4Lit presented at the Africa Media and Broadcasting Congress

At the Africa Media and Broadcasting Congress, Steve Vosloo presented m-Novels for Africa: A South African Case Study.

m4Lit presented at mLearn 2009

At mLearn 2009, Steve Vosloo presented m4Lit A teen m-novel project in South Africa. The presentation covered the paper of the same title co-authored with Ana Deumert and Marion Walton, as well as some interim results of the in-progress project.

Kontax on MXit

Since 26 October, Kontax has also been available on MXit. The MXit offering is quite different to the mobisite: no registration, comments or Kontax social network; and all 21 chapters are published at once (as opposed to serially over 21 days). Readers can still enter the Kontax Sequel competition from there.

There has also been marketing within MXit itself: splash screens to the 11-14 and 15-18 age groups, and a Tradepost broadcast message. It will be interesting to compare the two approaches to publishing m-novels: mobisite vs MXit. In the 9 days since it’s gone live on MXit, 4,000 readers have read the whole story, as opposed to about 250 for the mobisite. There is an interesting drop-off trend after the first few chapters for both versions.

Today at the Africa Media and Broadcasting Congress, Rick Joubert spoke about the mobile web in South Africa (before joining Yonder Media he was head of Mobile Media at Vodacom, so he has considerable commerical experience in mobile). He said that in general the mobile web is for 18s and over, and to reach the younger audience one should go MXit.

The best solution seems to be a mobisite that is accessible via MXit — something that has become possible only recently.

Kontax a finalist in the Bookmarks

The Bookmarks Awards celebrates digital media in all its guises, and is coordinated by the Online Publishers Association (OPA) as a means to promote digital media in South Africa. It is the Loerie Awards for digital.

Kontax is a finalist in the Mobile Publishing category. Winners will be announced on 12 November. Just to be a finalist is a great honour. Well done, team!