Partner Article

Addiply and Aframe: The start of something beautiful?

A swift story – with a strong, North-East twist.

As people may recall way back when, Addiply was part of the winning bid for WalesLive, the IFNC platform that never was for the good folk of Wales. It is why we have always hankered for a return; one that, hopefully, moves ever closer as we start to play with the language strings within our new-look API.

Up in the North-East, David Peto and his team at Sunderland-based Aframe were, likewise, part of the winning bid for the North-East. The one that included TrinityMirror, Ten Alps and the Press Association.

Aframe do very clever things with video in the cloud. And by simply being part of that whole IFNC process for the North-East, clearly *get* where the future of local TV in this country may be going. If its not off a big, tall mast sat atop a hill above Mold.

So there we were, hyper-local networked-focussed ad platform set to roll through Wales – and a smart piece of video thinking ready to help underpin the future of local ‘TV’ in the valleys of the Tyne and Wear.

Two years later and the pair of us have finally got to meet. And together – in the spirit of collaboration that we all seek in these experimental days – we now sit on http://loddoneye.com, the home of our #21VC NESTA-funded project.

Here… http://loddoneye.com/video

The usual range of caveats apply; it is just one, tiny, tiny toe in the water; both deal and kit set up for the specific purpose of seeing how we might start to monetise hyper-local news video going forward.

We have work to do to make such a service available to all Addiply’s publishing clients; it is – for now – a one-off pilot with Aframe as we play to Google to their YouTube. So, we shall see…

And a quick round of thanks; to David and his dev team at Aframe; to James and our Ian on the Addiply side; to Phil John on whose JournalLocal platform LoddonEye currently sits; to Ben, NESTA and Simon at the White Horse down in Norfolk for being game for a first ad.

And, sure, the video is old; it’s a demo. The point, for me, being that we can now offer the White Horse, Chedgrave, the chance to advertise their wares to that ‘audience’ – many of whom might have started said parade from the pub’s own car park.

To get their ‘brand’ in front of that hyper-local audience, that text ad has not had to go via California and back to find its natural home in front of 3,000-strong community on the banks of the River Chet.

And if anyone else wants to take that opportunity, then Ben (Olive) – the publisher of LoddonEye – has the kit to do it:

https://beta.addiply.com/network/inventory/10190

Simple, transparent and straight-forward. I just want to over-lay my local text ad over a local piece of cloud-hosted video…

Aframe is not the only video show in town, but the ‘fit’ works well. Drop them a line if video is the next thing on your shopping list…

What’s interesting next #21VC-wise is the ability for Ben to potentially now manage a ‘show reel’ of video content off his portal platform; have say five or six 90-second video clips of an interview with the parish council chairman, the local bobby, the retiring undertaker – whatever.

But in the midst of that ‘show-reel’ why not find a national advertiser seeking space for a locally-focussed, 30-second promo ad? Co-Op Local advertising their commitment to Norfolk growers? Or Taylor-Wimpey Homes showcasing their new housing developmenton the old Express Plastics factory site?

What might that ad opportunity be worth? Perfectly focussed, perfectly relevant and perfectly-placed for an audience that is ever more likely to see video as part of their daily lives; particularly when delivered onto mobile.

Is the answer to ‘Local TV’ in this country really going to come off a TV mast? A mast that can do Norwich, but can’t do Ipswich. Can do Birkenhead – if everyone’s aerial is pointing in the right direction.

Addiply, hopefully, starts to empower people like Ben to monetise his media wares, just as it empowers people like Simon, the landlord of the White Horse, to ‘find’ his own local audience on platforms that are ever more relevant to how people will live their lives in the 21st Century.

And it won’t be around the Beccles & Bungay Journal; nor ITV Anglia; nor BBC Look East.

And Aframe is the same; its an empowerment device for Ben and his ilk to manage their video space in a smart, simple and efficient manner. It even enables Ben to ‘export’ his video offerings at the touch of a button… and syndicate upwards his ‘exclusive’ footage of that nasty, fatal RTA on the A146 last Tuesday afternoon…

That, for now, may well be in the future.

But as the 20-odd contenders for Jeremy’s Local TV crown jostle for his attention this autumn and start to pin their commercial hopes to being 240ft up the nearest TV mast, so we’ll go with Addiply, Aframe, a part-time, 21st Century village correspondent and the church tower.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Rick Waghorn .