Even after 3 days of SXSW Interactive panels, there was still so much discussion about the future of digital media and entertainment in many more panels on the fourth day.

The main theme of the fourth day of the Interactive panels -- if you are a content brand, you are now expected to be a perpetual producer of digital content, 365 days a year, with a mix of content types (video, audio, text). You will also be expected to generate and engage in a social conversation around your content.

This theme of perpetual content production came up early in the day in a panel called the Future of Book Publishing. You can follow the conversation of the panel by using the Twitter hash tag, #futureofbook. Right at the start of the panel, we learned the disheartening statics from the book publishers -- 80% of books published do not make the money back that was spent on them and 40% of books shipped are returned unsold. The publishers on the panel who ranged from a giant, Harper Collins, to Vook.com, an online video and book seller, had some ideas about how to drive more sales and distribution success for authors.

All of the publishers were in agreement -- they want to sign authors who have a multi platform brand already in place before a book goes to print ; e.g. an author with Facebook fans, Twitter followers and a YouTube channel. Debbie Stier, Director of Digital Marketing at Harper Collins, says she expects authors to come with a “virtual tribe’. Stier wants to see authors use social networks to keep the conversation going beyond the official text, through crowd sourcing and continual feedback.

In this new world of connected, social media focused digital authors, I imagined Cisco Eos would be a great facilitator for a branded web site for an author. The site could pull in sample chapters, the author’s YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook feeds at one central web hub. For instance, a cook book author could have an Eos powered site for his book content, weekly recipe videos, user submitted questions and videos of their own creations based on the recipes, etc., and forums and blogs. The conversations and content around the author and the physical book title would continue to grow after a specific publishing date -- e.g. perpetual content production.

I ran into my friend Damon Berger, who you’ve seen in video here on the blog in the past speaking about branded entertainment. Damon is now the Director of Digital Marketing for Fox Filmed Entertainment, and he was here at SXSW Interactive to connect with digital influencers who can help act as evangelists in marketing Fox’s upcoming film Predators.

In a quick interview, I asked Damon how he keeps the online conversation going once a film like Predators comes out in the theater. It turns out in the movie industry, some studios handle it like this -- once a movie comes out, the theatrical marketing teams cease their efforts. Then once the DVD is on its way, another team -- the home entertainment marketing team comes in to promote the DVD and download release. How can having two or three different marketing campaigns for a movie title work when content is becoming
perpetual with an ongoing online dialog?

Interestingly, Disney recently announced continuity and consolidation when it comes to marketing films as they go from online pre release buzz, to actual theaters, to DVDs and digital downloads. Disney says marketing and distribution throughout the commercial life of a given movie now will be handled by a single team.

Damon shares his perspective on digital film marketing here, and Shira Lazar, who’s a digital correspondent from CBS News, also joins in the conversation with Damon to talk about the trends of SXSW Interactive 2010, and how they will impact culture and her own digital reporting techniques in the year ahead.

We are beginning to see some movie studios recognize online conversations around a film title need to start right at the initial push of promoting the film and continue on once the release has moved past the the theater and on to DVD / digital download release. For instance, Scott Brown blogged about how our new Cisco Eos customer Dogwoof will be using the Eos platform to engage audiences in ongoing conversations around the social issues Dogwoof distributed films address. Scott writes, “Building a social, community-based
entertainment experience around their premium content gives Dogwoof a unique opportunity to broaden and deepen its relationship with audiences beyond the theater to educate and ultimately effect change on these social issues.”

Later this same day, I was able to catch even more conversation about digital media content production in a panel titled, ‘Packaging, Pitching and Presenting Your Digital Content’. This panel had heavy hitting talent agents from Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and International Creative Management (ICM). The panel discussed how talent agents find digital stars online, and how brands can leverage such talent to sponsor and create online, interactive hits.

CAA’s Nathan Coyle connects major brands with digital media talent to deliver engaging sponsored entertainment experiences online. Coyle mentioned that Nestle’s ‘Butterfinger’ candy bar brand worked with comedian Seth Green to create an online experience that would engage potential fans of Butterfinger. Coyle says the key to creating engaging content for Nestle, was to make sure the brand let Seth Green flex his unique comedic talents so he wouldn’t be steered too much towards making pure advertisement content.

Also, Coyle mentioned his work with the teen content producer Alloy Entertainment to develop an online web series based on a book series they publish known as the ‘The Private’. The challenge for Alloy was how to make a book series an online video hit. Coyle says the successful answer was creating an online casting competition, where fans could wind up becoming part of ‘The Private’ web series if casted. The  casting campaign drove traffic to the site for ‘The Private’ and generated enough interest to create a dedicated online audience for the subsequent web series, here at http://www.privatenovels.com/

Max Benator, a content strategist on the panel cited what happened with Katalyst Media (Ashton Kusher’s digital production company) and the TV program Katalyst was producing titled ‘The Beautiful Life’. After managing just 1.4 million viewers for its first episode and 1.1 million for its second, the TV network carrying the program, TheCW, gave The Beautiful Life the ax. Katalyst decided to take the remaining episodes and build a YouTube channel around them. Already, the channel has aggregated more viewers than the 1st two episodes got -- 3.5 million views of the episodes online.

Both the ‘A Beautiful Life’ and ‘The Private’ are examples of content brands transforming themselves cross platforms from content formats like TV and book, and on to the internet quite well, while retaining audience and keeping the content and conversation perpetual.

There’s an inverse direction too:  Both George Ruiz of ICM and Keith Richman, the CEO of comedy site Break Media both offered that content is going the other direction more often -- from the internet, and then to the TV and book form. Ruiz and Richman admitted that they scour YouTube channels to find the next stars they may want to represent for other types of content deals, like branded entertainment, TV, film, and books.

So on this day at the SXSW Interactive festival I heard a lot about how content brands can keep an engaging social conversation around content they continually produce. Yet it’s a challenge to be a digital star on YouTube and Twitter, continually producing content, even if you have tremendous talent. Doug Oswandel from the music management firm Q Prime told me he spends a lot of time educating the artists his firm manages (big artists like Metallica, Josh Groban and the Red Hot Chili Peppers). He talks to his artists on how fans expect the bands to Twitter, and how such Twitter conversations are critical to drive traffic to their sites. Oswandel says it’s some time a tough sell to musicians who just want to write and play music and not tweet. Music business strategist Ariel Hyatt the next day at SXSW offered that each artist must spend 25 minutes a day producing online content -- wow.

Bottom line from this day at SXSW Interactive -- In a media landscape where perpetual content is now expected: authors, film producers, artists and musicians are almost seemingly required to be highly digitally connected and ready to have two way conversations with their fans, conversations which are expected to evolve over time.