June 5th, 2006

Message From Michael                    
                                                  June 5, 2006                                                                                                         

• CUSTOM MADE EQUALS CUSTOMER MADE


• CUSTOMER MADE JOURNALISM


• CUSTOM MADE NEWS WEBSITE


• TALKING ABOUT NEWS WEBSITES


• ON THE GO NEWS JUNKIES


• GRAB YOUR PARTNER AND DOSEY-DO


• TALKING ABOUT PARTNERS


• COCKTAIL CHATTER

• CUSTOM MADE EQUALS CUSTOMER MADE:  More than a third (35%) of Internet users have posted content to the Internet, according to a study of Broadband adoption by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.  That translates into 48 million Americans.  In large part that’s because Broadband use has jumped 40% over the last year from 60 Million in March, 2005 to 84 Million this past March.  That’s double the rate of the previous year.  The Pew folks define posting content as either having a blog or a webpage, working on a blog or webpage for a group, or sharing ‘self-created content’ such as a story, artwork or video.  The study says creating online content used to be the domain of ‘a broadband elite of… male technophiles,’ but no more.   It is still mainly young people with more than half (51%) of those under 30 posting content to the Internet.  However, the study also shows that broadband users living in households earning under $50,000 a year are slightly more likely (46% to 41%) to post online than those in higher incomes.  As proof of this growth, BusinessWeek Online reports that users post 35,000 new videos to Youtube.com daily while Google video reports 8.6 Million unique users.  Meanwhile, Harris Interactive reports the number of people online in America has grown 5% over the last year and now totals 172 Million.  The biggest jump is the number of people going online at home – 70% versus 66% in 2005.  On a very much related note, the website trendwatching.com which monitors “the most promising consumer trends, insights and related hands-on business ideas” worldwide argues that the customer-made trend of businesses co-creating content with their customers is THE most important trend to watch in the coming year.  The group defines ‘customer-made’ as corporations creating “goods, services and experiences” in cooperation with creative customers, tapping into their intellectual capital, and rewarding them in return for what is produced.  As examples, the group cites Nokia which is developing a wrist-band phone based on a Turkish designer’s concept; Proctor & Gamble which created marketing website Vocalpoint, “a community of influential moms,” to generate insight and knowledge into what mothers want; and the TV show L-Word which created a “fanisode” version of its show.  


• CUSTOMER MADE JOURNALISM:  On a sort-of related note to the idea of customer or consumer generated content, the 2nd International Citizen Reporters Forum will be held in Seoul, South Korea, July 12th to the 15th.  It is sponsored by ohmynews.com which is a South Korean based news organization with 41,000 ‘citizen contributors’ or as the founder and CEO puts it, reader-reporters.  More than 70% of its content is created by citizen journalists, with the rest coming from staff writers and other news sources.    Today’s ‘front page’ of its English/ International version (http://english.ohmynews.com) has a story about the future of Iran, the World Cup in Soccer and a programmable tattoo which uses nano technology to create visible and changeable tattoos under the skin.  Indicative of just how strong ohmynews has become, the International Herald Tribune recently announced that it will be running headlines from the website on its website.


• CUSTOM MADE NEWS WEBSITE:  New website spotback.com promises to help you customize your news selection so that it is designed just for you.  The site uses algorithms that analyze social behavior so that as you rate and interact with different news items, it develops a personalized profile of your tastes and then tailors the information for you.  Although very tech oriented, it also offers general news as well.  Another website buzztracker.org actually maps the world news and then displays it by location with lines connecting similar stories.  For example, today, not surprisingly, Baghdad accounts for 8% of the news while Santos, Melbourne and Mogadishu accounted for 1% each.  But then the website draws lines connecting associated news locations and associated news articles, displaying a sort of global news village.    


• TALKING ABOUT NEWS WEBSITES:  For the past several months, data from Nielsen/Net Ratings (and reported at cyberjournalist.net)  shows the top four news sites are pretty consistent.  Yahoo News takes the number one spot with more than 26 Million users who spend an average of 30 minutes online at the site.  Just behind is MSNBC which has slightly less than 26 Million users who average 25 minutes online.  They’re followed by CNN with 24 Million users who spend more time (39 minutes) online than the top two, and AOL News which averages more than 16 Million users who spend even more time (47 minutes) online.  While those four are consistently at the top and pretty consistently in that order, the number five, and deeper, spots vary between Internet Broadcasting, Gannett Newspapers, NYTimes.com, USA Today, Tribune Newspapers and Knight Ridder Digital.On a related note, the New York Times reports that a blog created by a former American soldier who grew up in El Salvador and Chicago reaches more Americans than all but a handful of major daily newspapers.  The blog, DailyKos, created by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga has some 600,000 visitors a day.


• ON THE GO NEWS JUNKIES:   The Boston Globe reports that virtually all of the local TV stations in the market are offering, or will be offering, downloadable news for people to view on their iPods or computers.  New England Cable News has announced it will offer its news and talk shows in a video-on-demand, podcast and cell phone version.  WBZ TV is offering a subscription version of its news, traffic and weather as well as reporter blogs for Verizon and Sprint customers.  WHDH-TV already offers text updates of its weather and school closing on mobile phones and plans to add web-only news video to its website.  WFXT-TV is relaunching its website with exclusive video not seen on its newscasts.  The article quotes local TV executives who say it is all part of a multimedia strategy which they hope will convince viewers to tune in when they can watch the TV.


• GRAB YOUR PARTNER AND DOSEY-DO:   At least that’s what some of the major Internet players are doing.  An article by reporter Burt Helm in BusinessWeek Online says May 25th was a big day for Internet dominance.  Tech Titan Yahoo announced that it was partnering with Tech Titan (sort of) eBay in an ad revenue sharing deal.  That same day Tech Titan Google announced that it was partnering with Tech Titan Dell to puts its toolbar on millions of personal computers.  The Yahoo-eBay deal helps Yahoo narrow the advertising lead Google has in the $12.5 Billion Internet ad market, and the Google-Dell deal helps Google ‘muscle in’ on Microsoft’s dominance of the PC desktop.


• TALKING ABOUT PARTNERS:  According to Nielsen/Net Ratings, nearly half (45%) of all Web users are partnering up in social networks.  The top 10 social networks grew 47% in the last year from 46.8 Million to 68.8 Million in April of this year.  The top site, of course, was myspace.com with 38.4 Million unique users.  Second place went to blogger.com which brings multiple blogs together for a total of 18.4 Million unique users.  After that it was classmates online, youtube, MSN groups, AOL hometown, Yahoo groups, MSN space, Six Apart Typepad and finally, xanga.  And the websites users are loyal, with anywhere from 47% to 67% coming back month after month.  


• COCKTAIL CHATTER:  The most powerful woman in publishing is NOT Oprah, according to an essay in the New York Times Book Review.  At least when it comes to “literary fiction.”  No, says writer Rachel Donadio, that honor belongs to Sessalee Hensley, the one and only literary fiction buyer for Barnes & Noble, and the gatekeeper therefore to the chain’s 799 stores and its 17% share of the U.S. book market.  The other most powerful woman on television, Katie Couric, scored on her final day in what New York Daily News writer Marisa Guthrie called a “three-hankie farewell-a-thon” with 8.4 Million viewers, the fourth highest viewing in Today history.  The other three were the 2000 and 2004 elections and the San Francisco earthquake.  The most powerful woman in words, national spelling bee champion Katharine “Kerry” Close plans to attend Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and become a journalist.  The BBC reports that Texas is planning to enlist the Internet in its efforts to stop illegal immigration at its borders.  State officials want to provide live surveillance footage so people worldwide can watch the Mexico border and report any illegal crossings that they may spot.    


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