What SxSW is talking about: Pheed

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pheed.jpgBy Tommy McCubbin

Over 10,000 people arrive in Austin every hour this week, and a lot of them are using a new social platform called a Pheed. Although it didn’t officially launch at SxSW, (like Twitter and Foursquare once did) it is still green enough to be discussed in the food truck queues.

Pheed is only months old, and has already garnered over 1 million users, including P Diddy, Paris Hilton, and Myley Cyrus.

At a glance, it feels just like a ‘nicer’ version of Facebook, but the more I explore it, it show signs of features and models that could be a glimpse into how we create, subscribe, and commercialise content in the future.

Screen shot 2013-03-10 at 2.45.53 PM.jpgThe core features are similar to that of Facebook and Twitter. You have your own channel, which you fill with your content. You can follow the channels of friends, celebrities, and soon, undoubtedly, brands.

The new platform, Pheed, is acknowledging how we connect and share our lives online has matured. There is such an abundance of quality user generated content out there, it’s often the preferred choice over professionally made content. If you ask half of the people at SxSW what their favourite TV channel is, they will say YouTube.

We have seen glimpses of user generated content being commercialised successfully, for example, you have the ability to earn money if you choose to show banners and pre-rolls before your videos on YouTube, and more recently, Vimeo’s Tip feature, which allows you to ‘Tip’ the video’s creator.

When you setup your account on Pheed, you have the option to charge people a fee for subscribing to your feed, ranging from $2 to $35 per month.

This is capitalising on the growth of Facebook’s white noise, and is responding to the feedback for a cleaner stream of content.

 

On Facebook, brands can buy eyeballs. And when they do, it is obvious to users.

When Facebook’s Like button first arrived, we generously tapped anything that we had a vague emotional attachment to. But now, we’ve learned that hitting ‘Like’ on Big M’s Facebook page, isn’t the same as liking a chocolate Big M at lunchtime.

Because of this, if we ‘subscribe’ to a brand on Pheed, we will know exactly what this means, ‘subscribing to see the content about what this brand says, does and sells’.

tmccubbin_headshot-web.jpgThe conversation in Austin now is about how brands need to offer real value in their community with quality content, not ads, as Pheed is the place you can see how much your Fans really do like your brand.

Tommy McCubbin (left) is Interactive Director at Clemenger BBDO Melbourne and is in Austin for SXSW. This is his first report, exclusive to Campaign Brief.