Piper Jaffray just released an extensive new report entitled “The User Revolution” that describes how the Internet is empowering consumers and dramatically changing consumer content consumption patterns (MediaPost summary of the report here). 

“The historically passive consumer is changing rapidly, not only becoming more informed and confident about purchase decisions, but also increasingly taking control of the consumption of information and content that used to be distributed by networks, studios, publishers and retailers,” said Safa Rashtchy, senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray. “We believe this will cause a significant rise in the prominence of the Internet as a major content consumption and marketing medium.”

In the report, Rashtchy goes on to coin a term for this new type of online content called “Communitainment,” defined as the blending of community, communication and entertainment into a new form of online activity driven by consumers.  The report predicts that consumers will shift more than 50% of their content consumption over the next decade to niche Communitainment formats (e.g., social networking, video and photo sharing sites), displacing traditional forms of media content like TV, magazines and large Internet sites.  This revolution will create a major challenge for advertisers and agencies that need to figure out new ways to incorporate their brands and messages into this new medium. 

As I read the highlights from this report, I couldn’t help thinking about how our Smack Shopping Show is a wonderful example of Communitainment (blog post on Smack here).  Smack Shows combine an entertaining live shopping event with an online community that creates a new form of original online content.  The content is highly engaging, with consumers tuning into Smack Shows for an hour or more each day.  Even more interesting, advertising is the centerpiece of each Smack Shopping program.  Leveraging the unique Jellyfish Cash Back auction, we use advertising dollars to actually create the shopping deals and entertainment that consumers tune in to experience.  By integrating advertising, entertainment and community, Jellyfish is helping drive this “user revolution” in media consumption and helping advertisers reach consumers in new highly efficient ways.  We think Smack Shopping is one great way that advertisers can meet the challenge laid out by Piper Jaffray in their report to stay relevant in the age of Communitainment.   

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 at 12:10 pm and is filed under Value Per Action Advertising, Smack Shopping, Internet TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.