BACK IN THE TIME :VIRGIN SUPPLIED UK CUSTOMERS WITH FRESH PARKOUR ENTERTAINMENT

As the time goes people doesn't buy CDs anymore and Virgin Megastores are shutting down all over the world ;specially that of les Champs Elysees; Sir Richard Branson, the UK billionaire whiz kid launched,back in 2006 a new
 service for his UK fellows:
 Virgincola ( already done), virgin-airlines (done too), vingin-holydays (man, he's everywhere),
 virgin-radio ,(him again),virgin-hotel, virgin-event, virgin-space (no way),virgin-phone, vir
gin-sports, virgin-bank, virgin-cars (it has died), vigin-games (get paid to play,it just rocks), 
virgin beauty,virgin tv, (ho my god, that guy is google made human)... virgin media !

(credit: www.virginmedia.com}

Virgin media and World Wide Jam, a web based platform for freerunning / Parkour community, had teamed up back in 2007

to provide Virgin media's customers and parkour/ freerunning fans with quality video entertainment through the Virgin media video platform. 

(source: world wide jam) the Vigin Media Platform

Back then, World Wide Jam was appointed by Virgin media "to find parkour content from filmmaker around the world. Our first offering is from award winning producer Stephen Follows. It's from his new DVD 'Parkour Journey' and featured Daniel Ilabaca in profile" the site says !

Virgin media was formed in march 2006 by the merge of several telecom compagnies. It is the UK version of Free but the first compagny in europe to ever offer quadruple-play - television internet mobile phone and landline telephone services.

In his early stage Virgine media intended to be a youtube-like , challenger,  alternative while parkour and the District 13 movie just smacked down UK. Parkour was the phenomenom of the 2000's, it was a rainning men and virgin media saw that as an opportunity to test a potential maket (niche) "to see if there is an audience". Virgine media was and still is a free platform (but nothing compared to youtube) so the deal with World Wide Jam wasn't about money but as the site says " Virgine media are providing this opportunity so they can sign people up to their services, if there's an audience there' potential consumers".

(source:world wide jam) high resolution videos

Quite interesting when you know the whole story of Virgin group's maketing approoach . They're known to kick the door of new business and  invest in niche market with much success.

But it was in 2007 and no one can be always true or successful ! The Virgin media platform didn't get the attention it desirved nor they got support from the community. I found with difficulties the website and there's nothing to be said : no quality content, very few videos.

If that experiment failed ; and sure it failed ; the reason why can easily be explained: 

1. the maket was immature
2. the audience if there was one, was and still is youtube property
3. the communities and teams were not as organised as today
4. the social tool were weak , few or no use of twitter, geo-localization, RSS
5. no fast and easy means to share, exchange, promote, discuss
6. a bad image and reputation: it wasn't promote as a safe and healthy way of life
7. few professionally made events
8. Virgin media couldn't rely on accurate datas about the freerunning and parkour community

Today it's totaly different, youtube still is the king though, but the parkour/freerunning world wide community gets to its critical mass, and represents somehow, now, a valuable market for big entertaiment and telecom companies. The successive economical and financial crisis changed the game. Compagnies are looking for fresh markets,  new customers, lsearching to diverify audiences and new formes of entertainment.

The partnership was a good idea , nor Virgin media or World Wide Jam had something to loose, it could have been a smart move for WWJ to break into the big industry and actully make money from it but it was way too early . After being focus on creating and managing the community, they should focus on the true value of it : knowing who it is.