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Five Questions For David Kines, VP MuchMusic

Published August 11, 2005

Davidkines
David Kines is Vice President of MuchMusic /  MuchMoreMusic / MuchLOUD / MuchVibe / MuchMoreRetro / PunchMuch / Razer.  I believe he has the longest business card in the world.


A driving force behind the distinctive Much style of live television, David has been key to the brand’s popularity within the ever-changing pop culture landscape. He took on the role of Vice President for MuchMusic and MuchMoreMusic in November 2000, and continues to develop and grow music and youth lifestyle brands for CHUM across multiple platforms – MuchLOUD (2001), MuchVibe (2001), MuchMoreRetro (2003), and in 2005 Razer and PunchMuch.

One Degree: Tell us about PunchMuch.  What do viewers see on screen and in other media?

PunchMuch is North America’s first and only 24/7/365 all-request music video channel that uses wireless SMS technology for viewers to make their requests.

The enriched TV screen for the channel currently consists of 4 active areas:

  • A live window where requested videos play.
  • A bar along the bottom of the screen where a list of available music videos crawls, along with a 3-digit code for each video.
  • The request leaders ranking. The top 4 most-requested videos are displayed along with the percentage of the total votes each has received.
  • A live SMS chat window. This is active during certain hours of the day. It is manually moderated to ensure appropriate messages make it to air.

Punchmuchscreen

Viewers watch the channel or website (and soon their cell phones) to find out the 3-digit code for a music video they want to request. They then SMS that 3-digit code to a PunchMuch short-code. The request, a.k.a. vote, is instantly and automatically tabulated and reflected in the on-screen request leaders chart and the viewer receives a return SMS message confirming their request has been received. Three seconds before the end of the music video currently on-air, the software "freezes" the voting and picks the video with the most votes to play next. The video’s vote-count is reset to zero, though that doesn’t stop viewers from requesting it again and the video playing almost as soon as its first play is ended!

One Degree: It looks like you are thinking of mobile phones as the primary "backchannel".  Will the Net play a supporting role or is it integral?

Continue readingFive Questions For David Kines, VP MuchMusic
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To Blog Or Not To Blog

Published August 11, 2005

This article is by Guest Contributor Rick Spence.
In a recent “AIMS”:http://www.aimscanada.com/ Discussion List post (not yet online), “Tema Frank”:http://www.webmysteryshoppers.com/pages/070abou.html said (in part):
bq. Many commentators argue that companies should jump on the blogging bandwagon, but for most companies I think that is bad advice. Let’s face it, how many of us really have something interesting to say (and the skill to write it well) every couple of days? If you delegate the writing to a staff member, how can you be sure that they’ll only write about topics you want aired publicly? But if you restrict them, your blog quickly becomes a boring advertorial, which will either be ignored (best case scenario) or derided publicly.
I agree with most of Tema Frank’s comments about corporate blogging, but not with her conclusion.

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Did Tucows Get Off Easy?

Published August 10, 2005

I’ve been thinking about our “Liberty Village Renamed _Toronto’s Porn Alley_”:http://www.onedegree.ca/2005/08/06/liberty-village-renamed-torontos-porn-alley post. Is it just me or did “Tucows”:http://www.tucowsinc.com/ get off really easy here?
In the “MSNBC version of the Dateline NBC story”:http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8841299/page/3/, it says _(emphasis mine)_:
bq.. We arrive at the address. *It’s a postal drop – just a little mailbox. It seems like a dead end.* But when we go back to our computer we find there’s another Toronto company affiliated with “Spunkfarm.” This one is called “Python,” and there’s even an address. Maybe the porn mailer is there.
We go to the location, not a mail drop. But it certainly doesn’t look like an office. The space was going to be a Middle Eastern restaurant. *Another dead end.*
*There is one place in Toronto that might help us: It’s called Tucows.* That’s the place that registers those Web site names. It’s what led us to Toronto to begin with.
*The receptionist is happy to look up the name “Spunkfarm” for us. We get another address* – this one very nearby.

Continue readingDid Tucows Get Off Easy?
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