We sat down with Will Flannery, Vice President of Advanced Services for Fox Cable Networks (FCN), and Brian Peterson, Director of Corporate Communications, to discuss the challenges of multi-channel content distribution, the importance and role of Super Fans and what we can learn about Super Fans from sports fans.

We have a great discussion about the Big Ten Network and how the Super Fans can be more like tribes than traditional segments. These Super Fans cover the entire demographic spectrum and building communities that work for them requires understanding the different use case these fans have and how to build sites, tools and conversations that recognize these different needs.

We also explore some of the organizational challenges of coordinating across the different channels, and the importance of creating complimentary experiences across channels.

 

 Digital Podcast 33 [37:43m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Here’s a bit more about Will and his responsibilities at Fox:

Will Flannery is Vice President, Advanced Services for Fox Cable Networks (FCN). He is responsible for the day-to-day distribution activities for advanced television services including high-definition, interactivity and video-on-demand services involving Fox Cable Networks, a portfolio of networks including FX, FX HD, FSN and its 19 owned-and-operated regional sports networks, National Geographic Channel, National Geographic Channel HD, SPEED, SPEED HD, FUEL TV, Fox College Sports, Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Sports en Español, Fox Movie Channel, Fox Reality Channel and the Big Ten Network. In addition, Flannery also works closely with sister units such as Fox Networks Engineering & Operations, Fox Digital Entertainment, Fox Interactive Media and Fox Mobile Entertainment on new product offerings, copyright protection, inventory sales and technical solutions.

[tags]Will Flannery, Super Fans, Social Media, Fox Cable Networks[/tags]

In what must have been some marvelous licensing legal wizardry, The Financial Times is reporting that Apple has signed a deal with News Corp’s 20th Century Fox studio to provide an online video-on-demand service. The service will allow consumers to rent the latest Fox DVD releases by downloading a digital copy from Apple’s iTunes platform for a limited time.

Both Apple and Fox are officially quiet about the deal and the Financial Times says that it is likely the deal will be announced at Macworld on January 14th.

The deal goes beyond movie rentals in that Apple will also for the first time extend its FairPlay digital rights management system beyond its own products.

A digital file protected by FairPlay will be included in new Fox DVD releases, enabling film content to be transferred or “ripped” from the disc to a computer and video iPod. DVD content can already be moved to an iPod but this requires special software and is considered piracy by some studios.

[tags]Apple, Fox, video, iTunes, Fairplay, DRM, online video rental[/tags]

TechCrunch UK is reporting that:

An unconfirmed rumour has reached me via a reliable source that LinkedIn is in talks with media giant News Corporation over a possible buyout in January 2008.

This kind of move would really make sense given the growing importance of the “Social Graph” and the potential for LinkedIn to play a role in providing the social glue that connects us all.

Given that LinkedIn covers a completely different demographic than MySpace, News Corp could also use an acquisition to extend its scale, content and advertising inventory to another segmented social network.

Maybe this will be the next generation of what it means to be a network where demographically segmented social networks are aggregated under an umbrella network that allows for super scale on the infrastructure.

Via Techmeme.

[tags]social networking, LinkedIn, News Corp[/tags]