A ROSE BY ANOTHER OTHER NAME
WOULD IT SMELL SO SWEET
A ROSE IS A ROSE IS A ROSE
THE WAR OF THE ROSES
MICHAEL’S MILESTONES
COCKTAIL CHATTER
We encourage people to pass on copies of Message from Michael. But if you would like to get your own copy, you can subscribe by sending an e-mail to newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME: Call it citizen journalism… consumer generated media… user generated content… customer made… open-source culture… curated consumerism… pro-am (as in professional-amateur) production… or crowdsourcing. The point is the day of top down journalism, like top down management, is being transformed into bottom up journalism. In the past two weeks, I’ve seen numerous articles about the growing partnership between viewers/readers/listeners/consumers/citizens – the volunteers, as one put it – and the professionals. The latest venture Assignment Zero comes from Wired Magazine, working with NewAssignment.net created by New York University professor Jay Rosen. He, by the way, gets the quote of the week, if not the month, award when he talks about “the people formerly known as the audience.” Crowdsourcing, as defined by Wikipedia, is a neologism for a business model in which the work of an employee is outsourced to a large group of people through an open call on the Internet. Or put more simply, you enlist the aid of your viewers/readers/listeners to provide ideas, act as resources, help with research on news stories. In the case of Assignment Zero (zero.newassignment.net), the idea is to use crowdsourcing aka “the wisdom of the crowd” to define the crowdsourcing journalistic model. In case you think this is another soon-to-pass fad, you may recall a previous MfM in which we noted that the Gannett group is re-fashioning its 90 newsrooms into ‘information centers’ using this model.
WOULD IT SMELL SO SWEET: Not according to a poll by Zogby International which showed that three-quarters (72%) of Americans said they were dissatisfied with the state of Journalism today. And almost the same number (74%) said citizen journalism will play a vital role in the future of American journalism. Almost the same number (76%) said the Internet has had a positive influence on the overall quality of journalism. The poll also showed that more than half (55%) said bloggers are important to the future of American journalism, and an equal number (53%) said the rise of Internet-based media posed the biggest opportunity for future journalism. Tell that to Dan Rather. In a speech to the interactive group South by Southwest and an accompanying interview, Rather talked about the potential of the blogosphere and opined (you don’t get to use that word very often) that bloggers who ask questions and do interviews qualify as journalists. Just to put it all in some perspective, back to the Zogby poll, three quarters (72%) of those surveyed said journalism is important to their community and while four out of five (81%) said the Internet was an important source of news, but only 30% said blogs were an important source.
A ROSE IS A ROSE IS A ROSE: Let me give you some variations on the theme of consumer generated media (CGM), along with some related and semi-related trends. Website Trendwatching.com notes a couple of examples, including book publisher Penguin crowdsourcing a new novel, Peugeot inviting designs for concept cars, and Kraft inviting people to ‘innovate with us’ with new products. Current TV has launched in Britain on BskyB and Virgin Media. VH1 has launched an Internet-TV hybrid which is also a hybrid of professional and amateur (CGM) content called acceptable.tv. A Los Angeles based start-up, MeatTeam.tv has launched an alternative to the company newsletter by helping corporations launch their own internal TV network using employee-generated content.
THE WAR OF THE ROSES: Okay, I know I’m beating a dead horse with this theme, but it’s actually true in this case. The 15th Century war pitted the two major houses, Lancaster and York, to see who would rule England. This latest war pits the major Internet players, Yahoo and MySpace against Google, to see who will rule the video world. And just like in Medieval England, people are drawing sides. NBC is joining forces with some-time rival News Corp., and News Corp-owned MySpace to do battle with Google and YouTube for control of the online video world. NBC and News Corp have enlisted Time Warner’s AOL and Yahoo as allies in its battle to create “the largest Internet video distribution network ever assembled.” Aside from the obvious, the other big difference is that the new site will be advertiser supported and will, the corporations emphasize, respect copyright laws. All of the news stories about the new online video service also note that Viacom, owners of CBS, has sued YouTube although, oddly enough, you will recall that CBS (a subsidiary of Viacom) has paired with Google and YouTube in the past. But there is no indication whether CBS or ABC will join in the venture. The New York Times article on the proposal noted this as a key question, which limits the new online video site’s offerings and draws comparisons to other earlier such Web ventures that failed. The Los Angeles Times article on the joint venture also noted Hollywood’s “dismal track record” in creating joint ventures, but says the players in this case have little choice but to band together against the Google behemoth. Industry magazine Broadcasting and Cable noted that both networks will continue to stream episodes of their own shows on their own websites but the two networks have not figured out which content will be most prominently displayed on the joint website. TV Week notes in its article that YouTube is well regarded for its ease of use and that YouTube receives more web traffic than the combined sites for 56 networks, including ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.
Sub-developments: Yahoo has announced a partnership with MTV to launch a co-branded website using User Generated Media (another variation of the buzz phrases) tied to the MTV movie awards. MySpace is expected to join the aggregator business collecting news from various news sites and blogs, and then having users comment and rate them. YouTube has announced its own Academy Awards of user-created videos with categories – most creative, most inspirational, most adorable along with best comedy, best music and best commentary. The winners will be announced today (Monday) at youtube/ytawards.com. Copyright-challenged YouTube has spawned a knock-off site, Delutube, which shows the videos which YouTube takes off its site.
MICHAEL’S MILESTONES: This is a new addition to MfM. An occasional segment on something that I think will mark a milestone, a tipping point, in the media world. We kick it off with a note about the movie 300. Not just because it made more money in its first weekend ($71 Million) than it cost to make ($65 Million); not just because it was the third highest rated R movie release ever; not just because it is based on an ancient Greek story; not just because critics hated it and movie-goers loved it. But because it is predominantly a digital creation (ergo, its low cost of production) that is not a digitally created cartoon.A Semi-Milestone: Actually I thought this belonged higher up when we were talking about the various news permutations, but it qualifies here, too, as a semi-milestone. CBS has launched a new form of programming/slash/journalism called “webumentaries” which combine reporting and interviews with dramatic staging to re-create important events. The melding of journalism and entertainment in low budget online productions is an “unconventional pairing of fiction and news,” as the Los Angeles Times put it. And before you dismiss it entirely, the producer of the new projects called Countdown is Susan Zirinsky, the woman who was the real-life, hard-nosed inspiration for the movie character Holly Hunter in Broadcast News.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: Just days after Pope Bendedict XVI criticized the media for its “destructive” influence, the Vatican announced it will launch its own TV network titled H2O which will air in seven languages. Six years ago in 2007, more people (74%) owned traditional cameras than digital cameras (24%). By 2005 more households had digital cameras (60%) than traditional cameras (51%). By the end of last year (2006), Jupiter Research reports that 65% of online households had digital cameras compared to 48% for traditional cameras. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of Gen Nexters – Americans in the 18 to 15 age group – told a recent Pew Research survey that they received financial help from their parents during the past 12 months and nearly half (46%) said they depend on their parents or other family members for assistance.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com. You can reach me directly at Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Message From Michael --March 12, 2007
TAKE A BYTE OUT OF TIME
CITIZEN JOURNALISM ADDS TO THE MIX
IT’S NOT WHAT YOU KNOW; IT’S WHO YOU KNOW
MORE SOCIALIZING AND NICHE NETWORKING
R.E.M. TO THE RESCUE
COCKTAIL CHATTER – BIG BYTES
We encourage people to pass on copies of Message from Michael. But if you would like to get your own copy, you can subscribe by sending an e-mail to newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
TAKE A BYTE OUT OF TIME: The amount of digital information generated in the world last year alone was equal to 3 million times the amount of information in all the books ever written, according to research firm IDC. An article in MIT’s Technology Review says that’s like 12 stack of books that each reach from the Earth to the Sun. In tech talk, that’s 161 exabytes of data. (An Exabyte is a billion gigabytes.) A study three years earlier in 2003 by researchers at the University of California-Berkeley totaled the global information production that year at 5 exabytes. That’s the equivalent of 37,000 libraries of Congress. By the year 2010, three years from now, there will be more data generated than there will be places to put it. Technically speaking. A report by research firm IDC says last year the world had 185 exabytes of storage available and by 2010 it will have 601 exabytes. But the amount of ‘stuff’ generated will jump from 161 exabytes last year to 988 exabytes in 2010. (And if you want another techie word to throw around in cocktail conversation, 1,000 exabytes equal one zettabyte.) Luckily, the report cited in MIT’s Technology Review notes that much of the data does get deleted and the methods of storage continue to improve. Even so, the article notes that the amount of information being generated will put pressure on developing better technologies to find, sort and secure the material. One last interesting factoid in this age of YouTube and MySpace from the report – by the year 2010, 70% of the world’s digital data will be created by individuals not corporations.
CITIZEN JOURNALISM ADDS TO THE MIX: Starting this week, several broadcast groups are joining in the citizen journalism movement. Television stations owned by Fisher Communications, Journal Broadcast Group and Granite Broadcasting will invite citizen journalists’ to produce anything from online news footage to complete reports. The groups plan to start airing pieces later this month in the different markets under the umbrella name of YouNewsTV. Regular readers of MfM know that several national and international news organizations, including MSNBC, Reuters and The Weather Channel, have already started similar programs. And although the Broadcasting and Cable magazine article emphasizes that this is a local effort, I should note it is not the first. Pappas Telecasting has its own citizen journalism website called communitycorrespondent.com. The president and CEO of Broadcast Interactive Media which put together the three group plan emphasized that it is a “revenue-driving initiative (and) if the video is not suitable to have advertising or is copyrighted material, it is not going up.”In a very much related note, BusinessWeek’s Jackie Coyle reports that TV networks and advertisers are increasingly adopting the YouTube model of viewer created content for a simple reason – they know a good trend when they see it. She makes the interesting point that those people creating videos for the web want to be on TV because it’s “the big leagues.” On the flip side, with traditional media in something of a free-fall, executives are looking for anything to stop it. Coyle scores the quote of the week, from Current TV co-creator Joel Hyatt who says, “this is not a genie that’s going back in the bottle.”
IT’S NOT WHAT YOU KNOW; IT’S WHO YOU KNOW: Remember that old saw? Well, here are some people you should know. It’s PC World’s list of the most important people on the web. Now, some you know, or at least know of – Larry Page, Sergey Brin who founded Google and Eric Schmidt who runs it; Steve Jobs whose name is synonymous with Apple; Bram Cohen, co-founder of BitTorrent; Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia; Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist; Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, co-founders of YouTube; Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, co-founders of Skype and KaZaA. What I liked about the PC World article is the semi debunking note that Time magazine’s Person of the Year – You – would not be making all those viral videos and doing all that social networking without these people. What I found particularly interesting was the people I don’t know but would like to know. People like John Doerr, a Venture Capitalist with the firm of Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield & Byers, whose investing in tech businesses, the magazine says, puts him at “the center of gravity in the Internet.” Or how about Paul Graham, Trevor Blackwell, Robert Morris and Jessica Livingston, co-founders of Y-Combinator, which the magazine says doles out smaller amounts of money, instead of huge chunks, to ‘potential mini-Googles.’ Then there’s the people I vaguely know but would like to know. For example, if you want to understand the war in Iraq, Mohammed and Omar Fadhill are Iraqis living in Baghdad whose blog, Iraq the Model, shows you the war from the citizen journalist power of view. If you really want to keep up with the best of the best in news, you have to keep up with Gabe Rivera, who created website Techmeme, which, as the magazine puts it, harnesses the blogosphere’s investigative power. After writing a news story headlined, “Anna Nicole Smith’s condition downgraded to dead,” how could you not want to read about Drew Curtis, founder of Fark.com where current news is dissected. And if you want to know if you’re in with the in crowd, then you need to know Tila Tequila. The singer/ model/ actress has redefined the word ‘friend’ with – count them – 1.6 Million MySpace user-friends, 56 million page views and 1,734,374 comments
MORE SOCIALIZING: You may remember a previous MfM talked about the social networking or social media revolution (which is the word all the studies used) coming to the digital and business world. Well, as further proof, add all these companies to the list. – Reuters, Netscape, Cisco, USA Today, Royal Dutch Airlines and Velvet Puffin. Now, if you just went, “huh?” on that last name, I understand. Velvet Puffin is a Singapore-based firm that has joined the long list of companies jumping on the social networking bandwagon, with networking software for use on mobile devices. Reuters is building a social networking site for fund managers and traders; Royal Dutch Airlines is building a social networking site for entrepreneurs with special interests in China and Africa; Cisco which is better known for development of the Internet technical backbone has bought Tribe.net, an also-ran in social networking websites overshadowed by YouTube and MySpace; and USA Today has revamped its website to add in social networking features. All of which seems to confirm the prediction by Netscape co-founder Marc Andreesen in an article in The New York Times that social networks will be everywhere, becoming more specialized and personalized niche websites. His Ning.com website is designed to provide the interface and bandwidth for people interested in starting their own social networks. Marketing website Marketingprofs.com says social networks are part of a “democratization of content creation.”
NICHE NETWORKING: A sort of variation on the specialized social networking movement noted in the previous article is the announcement that startup webcompany Next New Networks plans to launch 101 ‘micro-networks’ over the next five years. The websites will target small, different communities and brands. For example, the first ones to launch include channelfederator.com which are cartoons sent in by users, pulpsecret.com which focuses on comic book news, and threadbanger.com which looks at fashion designers.
R.E.M. TO THE RESCUE: Athens-based band R.E.M. will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tonight. Now, aside from the fact that I live in Athens, why is this worth noting? The event tonight (March 12th) will be carried Live – not just on television (on VH1) but also on-line (on AOL). Remember the worldwide on-line live presentation of the Live Concert? The move marks another milestone in the merging, converging, diverging digital and analog world.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: Presidential candidate John Edwards opened up a campaign headquarters on virtual world Second Life. Okay, that’s weird enough, but what’s even weirder is a group of “anarchist hippies” attacked his virtual world headquarters. On a semi-related note, Sony has announced it is planning to launch virtual worlds as part of its Game 3.0 push. China has launched a successful anti-satellite weapons test, knocking out one of its own weather satellites with a ballistic missile. Okay, that’s bad enough because it raises concerns the Chinese could do the same to an American or other nation’s satellite; but what’s been missed is that this is the largest debris-generating event in earth orbit ever recorded, with 917 pieces of debris recorded – debris which can hit other satellites.
SELF-SERVING PLUG: But a good one nevertheless. We here at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication are offering an all-day Bluejeans Workshop which is “short on philosophy but long on helpful, practical information.” The workshop is actually four concurrent workshops on reporting, shooting and editing but all with one theme – good storytelling. Presenters include Wayne Freedman, storyteller extraordinaire from KGO-TV and author of the book – It Takes More Than Good Looks; WYFF-TV photographer John Hendon who has won more videography awards than just about anybody; former NBC editor and NPPA video editing instructor James ‘Butch” Townsley; and CNN ‘digital news gatherer’ Bryan Pearson. The workshop on Saturday, March 31, costs all of $25, (and that includes lunch) thanks in part to corporate partner, CNN. For more info, go to http://www.grady.uga.edu/Bluejeans/.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com. You can reach me directly at Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.
CITIZEN JOURNALISM ADDS TO THE MIX
IT’S NOT WHAT YOU KNOW; IT’S WHO YOU KNOW
MORE SOCIALIZING AND NICHE NETWORKING
R.E.M. TO THE RESCUE
COCKTAIL CHATTER – BIG BYTES
We encourage people to pass on copies of Message from Michael. But if you would like to get your own copy, you can subscribe by sending an e-mail to newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
TAKE A BYTE OUT OF TIME: The amount of digital information generated in the world last year alone was equal to 3 million times the amount of information in all the books ever written, according to research firm IDC. An article in MIT’s Technology Review says that’s like 12 stack of books that each reach from the Earth to the Sun. In tech talk, that’s 161 exabytes of data. (An Exabyte is a billion gigabytes.) A study three years earlier in 2003 by researchers at the University of California-Berkeley totaled the global information production that year at 5 exabytes. That’s the equivalent of 37,000 libraries of Congress. By the year 2010, three years from now, there will be more data generated than there will be places to put it. Technically speaking. A report by research firm IDC says last year the world had 185 exabytes of storage available and by 2010 it will have 601 exabytes. But the amount of ‘stuff’ generated will jump from 161 exabytes last year to 988 exabytes in 2010. (And if you want another techie word to throw around in cocktail conversation, 1,000 exabytes equal one zettabyte.) Luckily, the report cited in MIT’s Technology Review notes that much of the data does get deleted and the methods of storage continue to improve. Even so, the article notes that the amount of information being generated will put pressure on developing better technologies to find, sort and secure the material. One last interesting factoid in this age of YouTube and MySpace from the report – by the year 2010, 70% of the world’s digital data will be created by individuals not corporations.
CITIZEN JOURNALISM ADDS TO THE MIX: Starting this week, several broadcast groups are joining in the citizen journalism movement. Television stations owned by Fisher Communications, Journal Broadcast Group and Granite Broadcasting will invite citizen journalists’ to produce anything from online news footage to complete reports. The groups plan to start airing pieces later this month in the different markets under the umbrella name of YouNewsTV. Regular readers of MfM know that several national and international news organizations, including MSNBC, Reuters and The Weather Channel, have already started similar programs. And although the Broadcasting and Cable magazine article emphasizes that this is a local effort, I should note it is not the first. Pappas Telecasting has its own citizen journalism website called communitycorrespondent.com. The president and CEO of Broadcast Interactive Media which put together the three group plan emphasized that it is a “revenue-driving initiative (and) if the video is not suitable to have advertising or is copyrighted material, it is not going up.”In a very much related note, BusinessWeek’s Jackie Coyle reports that TV networks and advertisers are increasingly adopting the YouTube model of viewer created content for a simple reason – they know a good trend when they see it. She makes the interesting point that those people creating videos for the web want to be on TV because it’s “the big leagues.” On the flip side, with traditional media in something of a free-fall, executives are looking for anything to stop it. Coyle scores the quote of the week, from Current TV co-creator Joel Hyatt who says, “this is not a genie that’s going back in the bottle.”
IT’S NOT WHAT YOU KNOW; IT’S WHO YOU KNOW: Remember that old saw? Well, here are some people you should know. It’s PC World’s list of the most important people on the web. Now, some you know, or at least know of – Larry Page, Sergey Brin who founded Google and Eric Schmidt who runs it; Steve Jobs whose name is synonymous with Apple; Bram Cohen, co-founder of BitTorrent; Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia; Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist; Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, co-founders of YouTube; Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, co-founders of Skype and KaZaA. What I liked about the PC World article is the semi debunking note that Time magazine’s Person of the Year – You – would not be making all those viral videos and doing all that social networking without these people. What I found particularly interesting was the people I don’t know but would like to know. People like John Doerr, a Venture Capitalist with the firm of Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield & Byers, whose investing in tech businesses, the magazine says, puts him at “the center of gravity in the Internet.” Or how about Paul Graham, Trevor Blackwell, Robert Morris and Jessica Livingston, co-founders of Y-Combinator, which the magazine says doles out smaller amounts of money, instead of huge chunks, to ‘potential mini-Googles.’ Then there’s the people I vaguely know but would like to know. For example, if you want to understand the war in Iraq, Mohammed and Omar Fadhill are Iraqis living in Baghdad whose blog, Iraq the Model, shows you the war from the citizen journalist power of view. If you really want to keep up with the best of the best in news, you have to keep up with Gabe Rivera, who created website Techmeme, which, as the magazine puts it, harnesses the blogosphere’s investigative power. After writing a news story headlined, “Anna Nicole Smith’s condition downgraded to dead,” how could you not want to read about Drew Curtis, founder of Fark.com where current news is dissected. And if you want to know if you’re in with the in crowd, then you need to know Tila Tequila. The singer/ model/ actress has redefined the word ‘friend’ with – count them – 1.6 Million MySpace user-friends, 56 million page views and 1,734,374 comments
MORE SOCIALIZING: You may remember a previous MfM talked about the social networking or social media revolution (which is the word all the studies used) coming to the digital and business world. Well, as further proof, add all these companies to the list. – Reuters, Netscape, Cisco, USA Today, Royal Dutch Airlines and Velvet Puffin. Now, if you just went, “huh?” on that last name, I understand. Velvet Puffin is a Singapore-based firm that has joined the long list of companies jumping on the social networking bandwagon, with networking software for use on mobile devices. Reuters is building a social networking site for fund managers and traders; Royal Dutch Airlines is building a social networking site for entrepreneurs with special interests in China and Africa; Cisco which is better known for development of the Internet technical backbone has bought Tribe.net, an also-ran in social networking websites overshadowed by YouTube and MySpace; and USA Today has revamped its website to add in social networking features. All of which seems to confirm the prediction by Netscape co-founder Marc Andreesen in an article in The New York Times that social networks will be everywhere, becoming more specialized and personalized niche websites. His Ning.com website is designed to provide the interface and bandwidth for people interested in starting their own social networks. Marketing website Marketingprofs.com says social networks are part of a “democratization of content creation.”
NICHE NETWORKING: A sort of variation on the specialized social networking movement noted in the previous article is the announcement that startup webcompany Next New Networks plans to launch 101 ‘micro-networks’ over the next five years. The websites will target small, different communities and brands. For example, the first ones to launch include channelfederator.com which are cartoons sent in by users, pulpsecret.com which focuses on comic book news, and threadbanger.com which looks at fashion designers.
R.E.M. TO THE RESCUE: Athens-based band R.E.M. will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tonight. Now, aside from the fact that I live in Athens, why is this worth noting? The event tonight (March 12th) will be carried Live – not just on television (on VH1) but also on-line (on AOL). Remember the worldwide on-line live presentation of the Live Concert? The move marks another milestone in the merging, converging, diverging digital and analog world.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: Presidential candidate John Edwards opened up a campaign headquarters on virtual world Second Life. Okay, that’s weird enough, but what’s even weirder is a group of “anarchist hippies” attacked his virtual world headquarters. On a semi-related note, Sony has announced it is planning to launch virtual worlds as part of its Game 3.0 push. China has launched a successful anti-satellite weapons test, knocking out one of its own weather satellites with a ballistic missile. Okay, that’s bad enough because it raises concerns the Chinese could do the same to an American or other nation’s satellite; but what’s been missed is that this is the largest debris-generating event in earth orbit ever recorded, with 917 pieces of debris recorded – debris which can hit other satellites.
SELF-SERVING PLUG: But a good one nevertheless. We here at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication are offering an all-day Bluejeans Workshop which is “short on philosophy but long on helpful, practical information.” The workshop is actually four concurrent workshops on reporting, shooting and editing but all with one theme – good storytelling. Presenters include Wayne Freedman, storyteller extraordinaire from KGO-TV and author of the book – It Takes More Than Good Looks; WYFF-TV photographer John Hendon who has won more videography awards than just about anybody; former NBC editor and NPPA video editing instructor James ‘Butch” Townsley; and CNN ‘digital news gatherer’ Bryan Pearson. The workshop on Saturday, March 31, costs all of $25, (and that includes lunch) thanks in part to corporate partner, CNN. For more info, go to http://www.grady.uga.edu/Bluejeans/.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com. You can reach me directly at Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Message from Michael -- March 5, 2007
THE TWO SIDES OF THE ONLINE VIDEO COIN
SING IT – THAT’S COM-MUN-I-TAIN-MENT
THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
FACT OF THE WEEK
THINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR
COCKTAIL CHATTER – RAZZIES, ESTONIA AND HALAL
A FOOTNOTE – THE NEWS WARS
We encourage people to pass on copies of Message from Michael. But if you would like to get your own copy, you can subscribe by sending an e-mail to newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
THE TWO SIDES OF THE ONLINE VIDEO COIN: The Online Publishers’ Association reports that nearly a fourth of U.S. consumers with web access watch online videos at least once a week, while 70% have viewed an online video ad and, of those who have viewed an online ad, a third have gone to the advertiser’s website. A survey by the Leichtman Research Group has a similar but slightly different take, reporting that 4% of ALL adults over the age of 18 in the United States watch video online every day and that an additional 14% watch online video once a week. By way of comparison, the report notes that 93% of all adults spend at least one hour A DAY, on average, watching TV. The survey of what it called ‘non-TV video services’ (meaning not just broadband, but iPods and cell phones) found that men 18-34 accounted for 41% of all online video viewing, although the demographic accounted for only 14% of the sample. What I found particularly interesting, and somewhat buried, was the statement that while total online video usage has increased in the past year, the percentage of adults watching online video remains relatively unchanged. I take that to mean that a small minority are just watching more. Yet, the survey reports that only 8% of those who watch video online ‘strongly agree’ that they watch less TV.
In fact, the researchers at Knowledge Network, which uses a web-based consumer panel, says its study shows that broadband streaming of TV programs is good for the networks AND good for the advertisers. On the network side, the study says three-quarters (78%) of TV network website viewers report that being able to watch online “increases their involvement with a program,” and that a quarter (25%) report they are watching the actual TV program more often because of the availability of the Internet version. On the advertiser side, the study says nearly half (49%) of THOSE viewers say they would give more consideration to sponsors who support such streaming videos, and THOSE viewers (30%) are more likely than Internet users overall (22%) to buy from companies that advertise on their favorite programs. The head of research for Knowledge Network says it all builds equity for the network and advertisers.
SING IT – THAT’S COM-MUN-I-TAIN MENT: Not even Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire could make it sound right. (I’m referring, of course, to the movie That’s Entertainment. Now, when I say That’s Entertainment, the younger people in the MfM crowd will think of Jam while the older crowd will say, “jam who?” Anyway… ). Research firm Piper Jaffray coined the term “Communitainment” which it says is the collision of community, communication and entertainment on the Internet. In a report titled “The User Revolution,” the group says global online advertising revenue is expected to reach $81.1 Billion by 2011 and that “communitainment is taking time away from other, traditional types of content consumption on the Internet.” The firm was on a word coinage binge and created another, ‘usites,’ to refer to user generated sites which are drawing from traditional sites. The report also warns -- or counsels, depending on how you look at it – about the growth of user generated brands with consumers taking control of content consumption and branding; media fragmentation with advertisers having to buy more inventory to have the desired impact; and the ‘golden search’ where search has become the new portal.Coincidentally, and somewhat oddly, Hitwise, which describes itself as a ‘competitive intelligence service,’ also reports that its research confirms the growth of consumer generated media (CGM) which it says is causing mainstream media to “scramble.” (I say ‘oddly’ because the report is only recently making news, although when I investigated it, I found the report was originally released in November of last year.) The report focuses on social networking sites, with the top 20 sites doubling their market share of visits year to year; photo sharing websites which include not just Flickr (which you will have heard about from MfM) but also Photobucket which is described as the clear leader in ‘image hosting’ as well as Imageshack and Slide; and user generated video which the report says has seen “a drastic increase” in the past year with user generated videos like TMX Elmo and Pokemon Theme Music Video rivaling established names like Weird Al Yankovic’s White and Nerdy.
THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER: Proof that beauty, and perceptions, are all in the eye of the beholder. The Piper Jaffray report says ad networks are experiencing increased demand because of Internet fragmentation and the need for targeted inventory while ad agencies are evolving into more sophisticated, technology-savvy entities. Yet a survey by Forrester Research finds that clients believe ad agencies are unprepared for the way consumers use media and technology, and warned that the bigger agencies must integrate with smaller media outfits if they want to remain relevant. Not surprisingly, the majority of ad agency executives in the survey think they’re well prepared and well positioned to deal with the changes. AdAge did a similar survey to find out whether traditional media felt ready to use digital media to reach consumers, or as the article put it – are they ready to deliver their clients’ message to wired customers. In any case, the article says, the upshot was – “could you repeat the question.” And for those journalists, broadcasters and other traditional media types, wondering what advertising has to do with them, the point is – ask yourself the same question. Are you really ready?
FACT OF THE WEEK: Nearly 18,000 media employees lost their jobs last year, and that, according to an article in Broadcasting and Cable, is the biggest group of layoffs since the dotcom bubble burst in 2001. The figures from New York based global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas for 2006 are 88% higher than the year before. Reporter Anne Becker writes that the ‘grim reality’ for the media giants is that “staying ahead often means cutting heads” and that while some jobs were ‘obsolesced’ by new technology, other cuts have come from units that “were once sexy but are now less so compared with shiny, new digital products.” And the factoid of the week is a line from her article talking about the rush to introduce new digital products. It reads, “revenue from these products remains a fraction of the advertising revenue from good old linear TV and will probably stay that way forever.” If you would like to read the full article, it’s at: http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6419245.html&referral=supp.
THINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR: You may have heard that the Fox News Channel has started its own news satire show on Sunday nights called 1D2 Hour News Show as a counter to Jon Stewart’s Daily Show. Well, now, Fox is following that up with a half-hour of stories derived from the blogosphere and titled “It’s Out There.” And later this month, satirical weekly and website The Onion is taking on broadcast journalism with its own streaming video ‘news’ network. The paper which is known for such stories as “expert too lazy for TV” and “scientists discover new cable channel” has established its own production unit to create the viral videos. And if you can’t wait until the end of the month, try “hipster magazine” Vice’s website VBS.TV which produces comedic, satirical and some amazingly biting citizen journalism videos on everything from traveling across the America to visiting the largest gun market in the world.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: The alternative to the Academy Awards is the Razzies, the “golden raspberry awards” for the worst in film-making. “Winners,” if that’s the right word are Basic Instinct 2, for worst picture, Marlon and Shawn Wayans for worst actors in Little Man, and Sharon Stone for worst actress in Basic Instinct 2. The little country of Estonia has successfully introduced e-voting, online voting, with nearly 30,000 votes cast online out of 104,000. Coca-Cola plans to launch a diet coke with vitamins and minerals while Pepsi is planning to introduce a higher-caffeine diet cola. And if your tastes run to something stronger, Jack Daniels is running a sweepstake in which the prizes are whiskey barrels, valued at $96 – empty, of course. Two British companies are introducing Halal prepared baby food. Halal food is prepared according to Islamic religious rules. This is actually fairly serious issue because the World Health Organization reports that iron deficiency is a problem in several countries because of the lack of such prepared foods.
A FOOTNOTE: The PBS program Frontline is doing a four-part series on the News Wars. This should be, and will be, a whole MfM of its own. However, on the briefest of reviews, I have to say that there was little in the program that is new to anybody following media trends. Even so, one of the points made in the program is so basic, yet so important, that I thought it was worth noting. And that is the idea that ‘new media’ is dependent on ‘old media’ in the sense that most of the new media does not do original reporting. Somewhere, some how, somebody must initiate, inquire, investigate. That has been the job of ‘old media.’ Much of the new media simply aggregates that information, and inasmuch as it does so, the program notes, it fails to stimulate original thought. And therein lies the challenge and questions about citizen journalism and consumer generated media.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com. You can reach me directly at Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.
SING IT – THAT’S COM-MUN-I-TAIN-MENT
THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
FACT OF THE WEEK
THINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR
COCKTAIL CHATTER – RAZZIES, ESTONIA AND HALAL
A FOOTNOTE – THE NEWS WARS
We encourage people to pass on copies of Message from Michael. But if you would like to get your own copy, you can subscribe by sending an e-mail to newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
THE TWO SIDES OF THE ONLINE VIDEO COIN: The Online Publishers’ Association reports that nearly a fourth of U.S. consumers with web access watch online videos at least once a week, while 70% have viewed an online video ad and, of those who have viewed an online ad, a third have gone to the advertiser’s website. A survey by the Leichtman Research Group has a similar but slightly different take, reporting that 4% of ALL adults over the age of 18 in the United States watch video online every day and that an additional 14% watch online video once a week. By way of comparison, the report notes that 93% of all adults spend at least one hour A DAY, on average, watching TV. The survey of what it called ‘non-TV video services’ (meaning not just broadband, but iPods and cell phones) found that men 18-34 accounted for 41% of all online video viewing, although the demographic accounted for only 14% of the sample. What I found particularly interesting, and somewhat buried, was the statement that while total online video usage has increased in the past year, the percentage of adults watching online video remains relatively unchanged. I take that to mean that a small minority are just watching more. Yet, the survey reports that only 8% of those who watch video online ‘strongly agree’ that they watch less TV.
In fact, the researchers at Knowledge Network, which uses a web-based consumer panel, says its study shows that broadband streaming of TV programs is good for the networks AND good for the advertisers. On the network side, the study says three-quarters (78%) of TV network website viewers report that being able to watch online “increases their involvement with a program,” and that a quarter (25%) report they are watching the actual TV program more often because of the availability of the Internet version. On the advertiser side, the study says nearly half (49%) of THOSE viewers say they would give more consideration to sponsors who support such streaming videos, and THOSE viewers (30%) are more likely than Internet users overall (22%) to buy from companies that advertise on their favorite programs. The head of research for Knowledge Network says it all builds equity for the network and advertisers.
SING IT – THAT’S COM-MUN-I-TAIN MENT: Not even Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire could make it sound right. (I’m referring, of course, to the movie That’s Entertainment. Now, when I say That’s Entertainment, the younger people in the MfM crowd will think of Jam while the older crowd will say, “jam who?” Anyway… ). Research firm Piper Jaffray coined the term “Communitainment” which it says is the collision of community, communication and entertainment on the Internet. In a report titled “The User Revolution,” the group says global online advertising revenue is expected to reach $81.1 Billion by 2011 and that “communitainment is taking time away from other, traditional types of content consumption on the Internet.” The firm was on a word coinage binge and created another, ‘usites,’ to refer to user generated sites which are drawing from traditional sites. The report also warns -- or counsels, depending on how you look at it – about the growth of user generated brands with consumers taking control of content consumption and branding; media fragmentation with advertisers having to buy more inventory to have the desired impact; and the ‘golden search’ where search has become the new portal.Coincidentally, and somewhat oddly, Hitwise, which describes itself as a ‘competitive intelligence service,’ also reports that its research confirms the growth of consumer generated media (CGM) which it says is causing mainstream media to “scramble.” (I say ‘oddly’ because the report is only recently making news, although when I investigated it, I found the report was originally released in November of last year.) The report focuses on social networking sites, with the top 20 sites doubling their market share of visits year to year; photo sharing websites which include not just Flickr (which you will have heard about from MfM) but also Photobucket which is described as the clear leader in ‘image hosting’ as well as Imageshack and Slide; and user generated video which the report says has seen “a drastic increase” in the past year with user generated videos like TMX Elmo and Pokemon Theme Music Video rivaling established names like Weird Al Yankovic’s White and Nerdy.
THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER: Proof that beauty, and perceptions, are all in the eye of the beholder. The Piper Jaffray report says ad networks are experiencing increased demand because of Internet fragmentation and the need for targeted inventory while ad agencies are evolving into more sophisticated, technology-savvy entities. Yet a survey by Forrester Research finds that clients believe ad agencies are unprepared for the way consumers use media and technology, and warned that the bigger agencies must integrate with smaller media outfits if they want to remain relevant. Not surprisingly, the majority of ad agency executives in the survey think they’re well prepared and well positioned to deal with the changes. AdAge did a similar survey to find out whether traditional media felt ready to use digital media to reach consumers, or as the article put it – are they ready to deliver their clients’ message to wired customers. In any case, the article says, the upshot was – “could you repeat the question.” And for those journalists, broadcasters and other traditional media types, wondering what advertising has to do with them, the point is – ask yourself the same question. Are you really ready?
FACT OF THE WEEK: Nearly 18,000 media employees lost their jobs last year, and that, according to an article in Broadcasting and Cable, is the biggest group of layoffs since the dotcom bubble burst in 2001. The figures from New York based global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas for 2006 are 88% higher than the year before. Reporter Anne Becker writes that the ‘grim reality’ for the media giants is that “staying ahead often means cutting heads” and that while some jobs were ‘obsolesced’ by new technology, other cuts have come from units that “were once sexy but are now less so compared with shiny, new digital products.” And the factoid of the week is a line from her article talking about the rush to introduce new digital products. It reads, “revenue from these products remains a fraction of the advertising revenue from good old linear TV and will probably stay that way forever.” If you would like to read the full article, it’s at: http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6419245.html&referral=supp.
THINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR: You may have heard that the Fox News Channel has started its own news satire show on Sunday nights called 1D2 Hour News Show as a counter to Jon Stewart’s Daily Show. Well, now, Fox is following that up with a half-hour of stories derived from the blogosphere and titled “It’s Out There.” And later this month, satirical weekly and website The Onion is taking on broadcast journalism with its own streaming video ‘news’ network. The paper which is known for such stories as “expert too lazy for TV” and “scientists discover new cable channel” has established its own production unit to create the viral videos. And if you can’t wait until the end of the month, try “hipster magazine” Vice’s website VBS.TV which produces comedic, satirical and some amazingly biting citizen journalism videos on everything from traveling across the America to visiting the largest gun market in the world.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: The alternative to the Academy Awards is the Razzies, the “golden raspberry awards” for the worst in film-making. “Winners,” if that’s the right word are Basic Instinct 2, for worst picture, Marlon and Shawn Wayans for worst actors in Little Man, and Sharon Stone for worst actress in Basic Instinct 2. The little country of Estonia has successfully introduced e-voting, online voting, with nearly 30,000 votes cast online out of 104,000. Coca-Cola plans to launch a diet coke with vitamins and minerals while Pepsi is planning to introduce a higher-caffeine diet cola. And if your tastes run to something stronger, Jack Daniels is running a sweepstake in which the prizes are whiskey barrels, valued at $96 – empty, of course. Two British companies are introducing Halal prepared baby food. Halal food is prepared according to Islamic religious rules. This is actually fairly serious issue because the World Health Organization reports that iron deficiency is a problem in several countries because of the lack of such prepared foods.
A FOOTNOTE: The PBS program Frontline is doing a four-part series on the News Wars. This should be, and will be, a whole MfM of its own. However, on the briefest of reviews, I have to say that there was little in the program that is new to anybody following media trends. Even so, one of the points made in the program is so basic, yet so important, that I thought it was worth noting. And that is the idea that ‘new media’ is dependent on ‘old media’ in the sense that most of the new media does not do original reporting. Somewhere, some how, somebody must initiate, inquire, investigate. That has been the job of ‘old media.’ Much of the new media simply aggregates that information, and inasmuch as it does so, the program notes, it fails to stimulate original thought. And therein lies the challenge and questions about citizen journalism and consumer generated media.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com. You can reach me directly at Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.
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