SWEEPS
THE REPLACEMENT FOR NEWS
THE SHIFTING SANDS OF TV
LET ME COUNT THE WAYS
CONSULTANTS ARE YOUR FRIENDS
COCKTAIL CHATTER
HARRY POTTER’S CLOAK OF INVISIBILITY
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
SWEEPS: Hear that tick, tick, tick sound? It’s not the clock in the stomach of the alligator in Peter Pan. It’s the countdown to sweeps. Eight days to go. Here are some things for you to mull over as we go into sweeps.
The REPLACEMENT FOR NEWS: According to The Conference Board, television broadcasts have replaced news as the most widely viewed content online. That fact was buried in the board’s Consumer Internet Barometer which found that one out of six (16%) of American households use the Internet to view TV broadcasts. That number was double that of a year ago. The other online preferences from the survey are entertainment (three quarters of online households use the Internet for entertainment purposes on a daily basis), sports, previews and “additional content.” Three out of five online TV viewers say the main reason for watching TV broadcasts online was “convenience.” More than a third choose online viewing in order to avoid commercials. The executive vice president of study co-author TNS says that even though only a small percentage of people say online viewing has reduced their traditional TV viewing, watching TV shows online “is going to have a huge impact on the way brands and advertisers communicate with viewers.”
THE SHIFTING SANDS OF TV: Here’s another one of those ‘buried’ statements in a press release. Digital video recording service TiVo reports that nearly two-thirds of ALL viewing during PREMIERE week was done on a time-shifted basis. What is equally interesting was that sports programming was NOT time shifted as much as other programs. For example, according to the company’s news release, ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy in the number one spot had a LIVE rating of 7.399% but an additional RECORDED rating of a whopping 19.865%. NFL Football in that same week had a LIVE rating of 8.378% but its RECORDED rating was only 0.668%. That almost seems counter-intuitive. In the same vein, you would think that a contest program like ABC’s Dancing With the Stars would score high, but nope. It was the #4 program in premiere week in LIVE rating, but it was much lower (7.551%) when it came to RECORDED rating.
LET ME COUNT THE WAYS: That all points out that there is no longer just one way to rank a television program. There is of course “Live” – Nielsen’s measure of who watched the program while it actually aired. Live-plus-SD (same day), which is the semi-official standard and Live-plus seven – all indicating recorded programming viewed after the actual live airing. Then there is the new measurement -- C3, which is who watched commercials either live or in a recorded form. But there is also the most Tivo’d shows, Video On Demand shows, and television show websites. And, from looking at a number of these over the past two weeks, they don’t always match up. Now, forgive me if I don’t get this 100% right; it obviously changes week to week; but there is some message in all this that smarter people than me could probably figure out.
For example, the top rated program, using Live&SD, for the week just ended (10/21) was CBS’s CSI, with 14.5 Million homes, followed by ABC’s Dancing with the Stars, with 14.4 Million homes, and then ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy with 13.5 Million homes. But then, as noted above, the most Tivo’d program by a wide margin in premiere week was Grey’s Anatomy. But it drops to number five when it comes to popular TV websites (at least for the week of October 6th) with only 3.26% of the Internet market share. The most popular website, by a wide margin, was NBC’s Deal or No Deal which didn’t even make the top 10 in ratings (it was #21) but which had a whopping 13.6% of the Internet market share, followed by Dancing With the Stars in the #2 position with 10.63% of the market share.
Consultants are your friends: Oh, well, maybe not all of them, but at least my clients would say that… I think. Actually, a study by a professor at Arizona State University says that despite all the stories about how news directors hated consultants, in actual fact most of them endorsed consulting as “one of the (field’s) greatest tools.” Critics charged that consultants represented “a rape of journalistic responsibility by upper management” because they urge stations to provide news that is “not what the public needs but what it wants.” But writing in the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, professor Craig Allen quotes early reports from the Radio Television News Directors’ Association that “consultancy is the best thing that ever happened to talented newscasters.” And news directors who recognized that it is a business. Or, as Craig put it, “television news was a business-journalism dialectic long before this concept (consulting) was popularized in empirical studies.”
In the same journal publication, Indiana University professor Mike Conway reviews the beginnings of television from 1941 to 1948 when the focus was on “content and visualization” and argues that “news would be best served if today’s news executives take a page from television’s news pioneers and put the emphasis on the stories and remember the newscaster is best utilized as a guest in our living room.”
COCKTAIL CHATTER: George Harrison became the final Beatle to make his solo albums available digitally on iTunes, Amazon.com, and the Zune Marketplace. The world is still waiting for the Beatles catalog to become available after Paul McCartney was quoted saying a deal was imminent in May. According to Ars Technica, the starting salary for a computer sciences graduate is $53,051. Frito-Lay which scored lots of publicity for its consumer generated television spot in last year’s Super Bowl is doing it again, calling for the best consumer-written song to be played in the game in February. At Tokyo’s Ceatec 2007 exhibition, Mitsubishi which is better known for its cars and Japan’s NTT DoCoMo mobile service provider unveiled a cell phone which has a built-in bad-breath monitor, along with a pulse meter, body-fat analyzer and pedometer. Senior executives prefer getting their news and information by print rather than by electronic means, according to a survey by Marketing firm Doremus along with the Financial Times. Pharmaceutical giant Merck reports that the number of people with Alzheimer’s is expected to soar over the next 40 years from 5.5 Million to 14 Million as baby boomers reach retirement.
HARRY POTTER’S CLOAK OF INVISIBILITY: I admit it. This is way over my head, but it’s so interesting, I thought it worth sharing. There is a substance called “metamaterial” which is used to make distortion free lenses, powerful microscopes AND “cloaking devices that make objects invisible.” Normally, light bends slightly when it hits material. “Metamaterials” bend light the OTHER way – what scientists call a “negative index of refraction.” Metamaterials kind of route the light around the object, making it invisible. Now, researchers at Princeton University have demonstrated “metamaterials” that are both higher performing and easier to make, which metamaterials and invisibility applicable and more of a reality.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail Michael@MediaConsultant.tv 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 my website MediaConsultant.tv.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Message From Michael -- October 15, 2007
THE INTERNET AND TV
OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE SPECTRUM
COCKTAIL CHATTER – PUZZLES AND BEAUTY AND GAMING
THE AWARD WINNERS DINNER
NOTEWORTHY EVENTS TODAY
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
THE INTERNET AND TV: A study by networking giant Cisco Systems (the company that makes the routers used to connect computers) predicts that monthly Internet traffic in North America will increase 264% by 2011 to more than 7.8 Million Terabytes – again, MONTHLY. Just to remind you, a terabyte is a Million Megabytes or a Thousand Gigabytes. Much of that, of course, is coming in the form of video. Okay, I’m still wrestling with the fact that YouTube alone accounts for as much bandwidth today as the entire Internet did in 2000, according to Federal Communications Commissioner Robert McDowell. That was from a Wall Street Journal commentary. Now, another article from WSJ quotes Larry Roberts, the original creator of ARPAnet, the precursor to the Internet, as saying the Internet is ‘last-generation technology.’ In what may be one of the great quotes of the day, he says, “the Internet wasn’t designed for television… I know because I designed it.” He and former Cisco chief technology officer Len Bosack are trying to re-design the infrastructure of the Internet to cope with that 264% increase. One-time pirating website BitTorrent is doing the same thing, designing what it calls DNA (Delivery Network Accelerator) for your PC.
And they better work, because several recent studies indicate that, as one study put it, online video has gone mainstream. Microsoft’s digital agency Avenue A/ Razorfish reports that two-thirds of what it calls ‘connected customers’ (meaning people with broadband access) say they regularly watch video on YouTube and that nearly all of them (95%) report that they have watched an online video in the past three months. Further indication of the growing interest in online video comes from a study by Frank N. Magid and Associates which found that only a quarter (23%) of Millennial would rather watch video on TV instead of the Internet. More than a third (36%) of the 18-24 crowd say that the PC is “competing” for their entertainment time. Meanwhile Wayne Karrfalt reports on TVNewsday.com that most of the major TV groups now have a C-level executive dedicated to developing and monetizing online activities even though online activities only represent about 5% of the revenue pie for them.
And they’re not alone; BrightCove announced that it has launched a new service providing what it calls “broadcast quality online TV shows” using the BitTorrent technology mentioned above. Joost, as you will recall from last week’s MfM, has moved out of the beta stage and gone public. Vuze ‘Open Entertainment Platform’ which also promises high resolution video has opened up its platform to independent producers. Add to the expanding list Comcast’s Ziddio.com which focuses on consumer generated content. And, reportedly, today newly minted Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore is supposed to announce a major development to the CurrentTV site. Read Cynopsis and you will seek a weekly, but often daily, listing of new television series being released on either iTunes or UnBox.
And for good reason. The Interactive Advertising Bureau reports that Internet advertising in the second quarter of this year passed the $5 Billion mark for the first time. That’s the highest quarterly revenue reporting since 1996 and a 26% increase over the previous year. The first half of 2007 is more than $10 Billion with the yearly revenue expected to hit $21 Billion. The report tracks Internet advertising revenue starting in 1999 when the total for the year was $4.6 Billion. It nearly doubled the next year, 2000, but then declined for several years before starting its phenomenal growth in 2004. On the flip side (there’s always a flip side), a survey by Nielsen of 26,000 consumers in 47 markets worldwide found that advertising in old media scored much higher than advertising in new media. Nearly two thirds (63%) say they trust newspapers ads and more than half (56%) say they trust TV spots and magazine placements. But only a quarter (26%) trust banner ads and only a third (34%) trust search ads.
Indicative of the power of peer recommendations, the same study found the most trusted form of ‘advertising’ came from other consumer recommendations with more than three-quarters (78%) expressing confidence. And a warning to marketers everywhere, the Nielsen survey noted that some word-of-mouth experts report that bad experiences outnumber good ones by as many as five to one.
Just as an only semi-related side note, Raymond Kurzwell, the author of The Age of Intelligent Machines and The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, estimates that a human being’s functional memory is about 1.25 Terabytes.
OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE SPECTRUM: Two recent reports contain some interesting observations about Millennials and Baby Boomers. News Director Stacy Woefel of the University of Missouri’s KOMU-TV station writes about Millennials in the recent Radio Television News Directors’ Association magazine, The Communicator. In part, the story says Millennials want financial security, strong mentors and a feeling of being someone special. There is also a sense of entitlement along with unrealistic expectations. On the other end, a report by Mediamark Research Inc., found Baby Boomers are optimistic with four in ten (39%) saying they think their ‘households” will be better off financially a year from now and 90% of them saying they ‘themselves’ will be better off a year from now. More than half of Baby Boomers (55%) reported vote in an election, with a third (31%) undertaking a home remodeling project and less than half (41%) playing the lottery.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: U.S. consumers have lost more than $7 Billion to viruses, spyware and phishing, according to a survey by Consumer Reports. A group of M-I-T grads have designed a folding-wing plane, the Terrafugia, that they say will eventually be the prototype of a hybrid car-plane that would make George Jetson jealous. Makers of a puzzle called Eternity II, being sold at Toys R Us for $49.95, are offering $2 Million to someone who solves the puzzle which has 256 geometric shapes (sort of a successor to Rubic’s Cube) by December 31, 2007. And a study by researchers at the University of Toronto found that the “spatial gap” (the ability to process visual information from a wide variety of sources) between men and women can be closed if women spent time playing video games. According to Virtual Worlds Management (Yes, strange as it may seem, there is an organization aimed at managing virtual worlds), venture capital, technology and media firms have invested more than $1 Billion in 35 virtual worlds.
Okay, this one isn’t cocktail chatter, although it is, but it isn’t. Anyway, MfM readers who remember the Dove “Evolution” spot will want to see the newest one – Onslaught, which is a one-minute visual warning to mothers to “talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does.” You can find it on YouTube or the official website, campaignforrealbeauty.com.
THE AWARD WINNERS DINNER: It’s tonight in New York, when the national Edward R. Murrow award winners will be honored. I just wanted to add my own Mazel Tov to the friends and winners at WKYT/ Lexington (Continuing Coverage); KEYE/ Austin (News Series); WSLS/ Roanoke (Newscast); WTVQ/ Lexington (Spot News); WAFF/ Huntsville (Website); and news director Frank Volpicella at KVUE/ Austin which won for Overall Excellence.
ALSO OF NOTE TODAY: Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch launches the company’s new business channel today. And today is blog action day when bloggers around the world are supposed to join in solidarity for the environment. You can visit the website blogactionday.com.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail Michael@MediaConsultant.tv 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 my website MediaConsultant.tv.
OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE SPECTRUM
COCKTAIL CHATTER – PUZZLES AND BEAUTY AND GAMING
THE AWARD WINNERS DINNER
NOTEWORTHY EVENTS TODAY
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
THE INTERNET AND TV: A study by networking giant Cisco Systems (the company that makes the routers used to connect computers) predicts that monthly Internet traffic in North America will increase 264% by 2011 to more than 7.8 Million Terabytes – again, MONTHLY. Just to remind you, a terabyte is a Million Megabytes or a Thousand Gigabytes. Much of that, of course, is coming in the form of video. Okay, I’m still wrestling with the fact that YouTube alone accounts for as much bandwidth today as the entire Internet did in 2000, according to Federal Communications Commissioner Robert McDowell. That was from a Wall Street Journal commentary. Now, another article from WSJ quotes Larry Roberts, the original creator of ARPAnet, the precursor to the Internet, as saying the Internet is ‘last-generation technology.’ In what may be one of the great quotes of the day, he says, “the Internet wasn’t designed for television… I know because I designed it.” He and former Cisco chief technology officer Len Bosack are trying to re-design the infrastructure of the Internet to cope with that 264% increase. One-time pirating website BitTorrent is doing the same thing, designing what it calls DNA (Delivery Network Accelerator) for your PC.
And they better work, because several recent studies indicate that, as one study put it, online video has gone mainstream. Microsoft’s digital agency Avenue A/ Razorfish reports that two-thirds of what it calls ‘connected customers’ (meaning people with broadband access) say they regularly watch video on YouTube and that nearly all of them (95%) report that they have watched an online video in the past three months. Further indication of the growing interest in online video comes from a study by Frank N. Magid and Associates which found that only a quarter (23%) of Millennial would rather watch video on TV instead of the Internet. More than a third (36%) of the 18-24 crowd say that the PC is “competing” for their entertainment time. Meanwhile Wayne Karrfalt reports on TVNewsday.com that most of the major TV groups now have a C-level executive dedicated to developing and monetizing online activities even though online activities only represent about 5% of the revenue pie for them.
And they’re not alone; BrightCove announced that it has launched a new service providing what it calls “broadcast quality online TV shows” using the BitTorrent technology mentioned above. Joost, as you will recall from last week’s MfM, has moved out of the beta stage and gone public. Vuze ‘Open Entertainment Platform’ which also promises high resolution video has opened up its platform to independent producers. Add to the expanding list Comcast’s Ziddio.com which focuses on consumer generated content. And, reportedly, today newly minted Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore is supposed to announce a major development to the CurrentTV site. Read Cynopsis and you will seek a weekly, but often daily, listing of new television series being released on either iTunes or UnBox.
And for good reason. The Interactive Advertising Bureau reports that Internet advertising in the second quarter of this year passed the $5 Billion mark for the first time. That’s the highest quarterly revenue reporting since 1996 and a 26% increase over the previous year. The first half of 2007 is more than $10 Billion with the yearly revenue expected to hit $21 Billion. The report tracks Internet advertising revenue starting in 1999 when the total for the year was $4.6 Billion. It nearly doubled the next year, 2000, but then declined for several years before starting its phenomenal growth in 2004. On the flip side (there’s always a flip side), a survey by Nielsen of 26,000 consumers in 47 markets worldwide found that advertising in old media scored much higher than advertising in new media. Nearly two thirds (63%) say they trust newspapers ads and more than half (56%) say they trust TV spots and magazine placements. But only a quarter (26%) trust banner ads and only a third (34%) trust search ads.
Indicative of the power of peer recommendations, the same study found the most trusted form of ‘advertising’ came from other consumer recommendations with more than three-quarters (78%) expressing confidence. And a warning to marketers everywhere, the Nielsen survey noted that some word-of-mouth experts report that bad experiences outnumber good ones by as many as five to one.
Just as an only semi-related side note, Raymond Kurzwell, the author of The Age of Intelligent Machines and The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, estimates that a human being’s functional memory is about 1.25 Terabytes.
OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE SPECTRUM: Two recent reports contain some interesting observations about Millennials and Baby Boomers. News Director Stacy Woefel of the University of Missouri’s KOMU-TV station writes about Millennials in the recent Radio Television News Directors’ Association magazine, The Communicator. In part, the story says Millennials want financial security, strong mentors and a feeling of being someone special. There is also a sense of entitlement along with unrealistic expectations. On the other end, a report by Mediamark Research Inc., found Baby Boomers are optimistic with four in ten (39%) saying they think their ‘households” will be better off financially a year from now and 90% of them saying they ‘themselves’ will be better off a year from now. More than half of Baby Boomers (55%) reported vote in an election, with a third (31%) undertaking a home remodeling project and less than half (41%) playing the lottery.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: U.S. consumers have lost more than $7 Billion to viruses, spyware and phishing, according to a survey by Consumer Reports. A group of M-I-T grads have designed a folding-wing plane, the Terrafugia, that they say will eventually be the prototype of a hybrid car-plane that would make George Jetson jealous. Makers of a puzzle called Eternity II, being sold at Toys R Us for $49.95, are offering $2 Million to someone who solves the puzzle which has 256 geometric shapes (sort of a successor to Rubic’s Cube) by December 31, 2007. And a study by researchers at the University of Toronto found that the “spatial gap” (the ability to process visual information from a wide variety of sources) between men and women can be closed if women spent time playing video games. According to Virtual Worlds Management (Yes, strange as it may seem, there is an organization aimed at managing virtual worlds), venture capital, technology and media firms have invested more than $1 Billion in 35 virtual worlds.
Okay, this one isn’t cocktail chatter, although it is, but it isn’t. Anyway, MfM readers who remember the Dove “Evolution” spot will want to see the newest one – Onslaught, which is a one-minute visual warning to mothers to “talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does.” You can find it on YouTube or the official website, campaignforrealbeauty.com.
THE AWARD WINNERS DINNER: It’s tonight in New York, when the national Edward R. Murrow award winners will be honored. I just wanted to add my own Mazel Tov to the friends and winners at WKYT/ Lexington (Continuing Coverage); KEYE/ Austin (News Series); WSLS/ Roanoke (Newscast); WTVQ/ Lexington (Spot News); WAFF/ Huntsville (Website); and news director Frank Volpicella at KVUE/ Austin which won for Overall Excellence.
ALSO OF NOTE TODAY: Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch launches the company’s new business channel today. And today is blog action day when bloggers around the world are supposed to join in solidarity for the environment. You can visit the website blogactionday.com.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail Michael@MediaConsultant.tv 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 my website MediaConsultant.tv.
Message From Michael -- October 8, 2007
TRUST IS TO BE EARNED
THE SWEET SPOT
MOST EXPENSIVE ADS ON TV
MOST EXPENSIVE TV ON ADS
GOOD NEWS FOR NEWS
FOLLOW-UPS – JOOST AND LINKEDIN
COCKTAIL CHATTER – MALLS AND CUBA
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
TRUST IS TO BE EARNED: And apparently the media hasn’t earned it, at least in developed countries. The Edelman public relations firm did a worldwide survey – what it called a Trust Barometer -- to find out what people thought of business, media, religion, government, and non-governmental organizations. The question was “how much do you trust each institution to do what’s right.” Interestingly, the media scored lower (37%) than any other institution in developed countries (defined as Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States). Yet the media scored the second highest level of trust (56%), just behind business (60%) in the developing countries (defined as Brazil, China, India, Poland, Mexico and Russia).
Just for the record, in developed countries the scores go like this: Non-governmental organizations, NGO’s, scored the highest (53%), followed by business (47%), government and religion (both at 38%) and media (37%). In developing countries, it goes like this: Business (60%), media (56%), NGO’s (53%), government and religion (both at 46%).
THE SWEET SPOT: The language is a little convoluted, but one of the many messages that I found particularly interesting from the report is this one: “the vertical axis – the top-down, one-way dissemination by an authoritative voice of precise, controlled messages – has been firmly intersected by a horizontal axis of a continuous, messy, powerful, peer-to-peer conversation.” Notice – not replaced, but augmented. According to company President and CEO Richard Edelman, it’s at the nexus of these “vertical and horizontal axes” that companies will find the ‘sweet spot’ of communications and trust.
The report also indicates, yet again, the power of Word of Mouth, which we have talked about before in MfM. In the European Union, North America and Latin America, “a person like me” is the most credible deliverer of information about a company. In Asia, “a person like me” is second only to physicians. And in many countries, a conversation with a friend or peer is as trusted a source of information about a company as an article in a newspaper or TV news coverage. However, newspapers, TV and radio remain more credible than new media sources like blogs or a company website. The report notes that it used to be that ‘a person like me’ was one of our neighbors or people in our social circle, but now the commonality is that they share our interests, regardless of geographic location.
Finally, and I shouldn’t say finally because there is so much in the report, the survey says the “new green” – that is, the new hot button issue – is how companies treat their employees. “Fair treatment of employees” is the most or second most important activity (behind the environment) for a socially responsible company to engage in.
MOST EXPENSIVE ADS ON TV: Last year, it was ABC’s Desperate Housewives that took the top spot. This year, according to Advertising Age, ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy at $419,000 per 30-second spot is the most expensive show on network TV. Followed by: NBC’s Sunday Night Football ($358K), Fox’s The Simpson’s ($315K), NBC’s Heroes ($296K), ABC’s Desperate Housewives ($270K), CBS’s CSI ($248K), CBS’s Two and Half Men ($231K), and tied for 9th place at $208,000 per spot was CBS’s Survivor: China and ABC’s Private Practice. Of course, reporter Brian Steinberg notes that all of them will be toppled by American Idol in the spring.
MOST EXPENSIVE TV ON ADS: I’ll admit it. Sometimes my headlines are a stretch. In this case, we’re talking about the top media companies. Two lists came out. Both reporting that Time Warner is the biggest media company in the world. The oddity is the ‘slight’ difference in numbers. Advertising Age puts TW’s gross revenues at just under $34 Billion. Fortune magazine puts it at just under $45 Billion. Both lists also put the Walt Disney Company at the top of their lists, but again there is a wide disparity in numbers, with Advertising Age putting Disney’s revenues in 2006 at $16.8 Billion while Fortune magazine puts Disney’s revenues at $34.2 Billion. The disparity (I think) is that Advertising Age lists only the net U.S. media revenues while Fortune is listing worldwide revenues. That doesn’t quite explain why Advertising Age puts Comcast in the number two spot with revenues of about $27.4 Billion, but Comcast doesn’t even make Fortune magazine’s list of top entertainment companies.
In any case, the lists do provide some interesting fodder. For example, Time Warner as the top media company in the world ‘only’ has one-tenth the revenues of the world’s largest company – Wal-Mart which had more than $351 Billion in revenue in 2006. Staggering, isn’t it? In fact, even based on the larger revenue figures, Time Warner only makes it to the 48th spot on the Fortune 500 list. However, even so, the revenue of Time Warner at the top spot in the Advertising Age list is 100 times the revenue of the media company occupying the final 100th spot on the media company list – Schurz Communications at $300 Million. The editors at Advertising Age also note that the cost of entry to the top 100 media list has grown significantly over the last two decades. In 1986, a ‘mere’ $100 Million would have gained a company entry into the top 100 list; in 1999, that figure rose to $200 Million; and now in this latest report, it’s $300 Million.
GOOD NEWS FOR NEWS: It was only one line in the Associated Press report, and it was buried at the end, but it’s too interesting not to report. According to a poll by the AP and survey research firm Ipsos (which has the somewhat insulting slogan – Nobody’s Unpredictable), more than a quarter (28%) of the American public would like to see more news on television. This is up significantly from two years ago when it was 17%. This is the same poll that found nearly two-thirds of the American public (62%) believe television is getting worse and that nearly three-quarters (71%) believe there are too many reality shows on TV.
FOLLOW-UPS: TV-on-computer/ video-streaming site Joost has gone public. Regular readers of MfM will remember that we were part of the Beta testing of the site which up to now had been by invite only. But now it’s all aboard. Al-Jazeera says it is close to inking a deal with a major distributor in America. The British Broadcasting Company has launched the Americanized version of its World Now television newscast at 7:00 p.m. EST. After a week of watching, what I noticed most was not just that the report had a much broader worldwide perspective, but the commercials which included a spot about Qatar as the financial center of the world, Turkish Airways as connecting the world, and tourist attractions in India. As long as I am making some personal observations, LinkedIn, a social networking site for the business community, which we’ve mentioned in previous MfM’s appears to be taking off. In the last month, I have had more requests to link up from former students, and others, than I can remember receiving in the last year.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: In what must signal the end of an era, the International Council of Shopping Centers reports that only one enclosed shopping mall (the one-time haven of teenagers everywhere) was built in 2006 and none are planned for this year. According to an article in The New York Times by Stanford journalism professor and technology writer G. Paschal Zachary, Internet behemoth Google uses at least 450,000 computers in its search operations.
There is a website, cubaheadlines.com, which, as you would expect, has news and editorials about Cuba. All fine and dandy. But the part I love is that the banner at the top of the page is a map of Cuba (to be expected) a picture of Havana harbor (to be expected) and emblazoned across all this, the true symbol of Cuba – what looks to me like a 1953 Packard, in mint condition of course.
And finally, website Entrepreneur.com named ten businesses facing possible (and that’s the debatable word) extinction in the next ten years: Record stores (no explanation needed), camera film manufacturing (again, no explanation needed), crop dusters (commercial airlines are taking over); gay bars (because of greater acceptance in society); newspapers (at least the printing press plant part, but not the Internet part); pay phones whose numbers have dropped by half over the last decade (not just because of cell phones, but because cities are eliminating them because they’re gathering points for drug dealers); used bookstores (you can find what you want on the Internet); piggy banks (as we go to a paperless society); coin operated arcades which have dropped from 10,000 to 3,000 in the last decade because of video games at home and online; and -- wishful thinking -- telemarketers whose sales have been stagnant because of the national Do Not Call list, but who still managed to bring in $393 Billion last year.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail Michael@MediaConsultant.tv 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 my website MediaConsultant.tv.
THE SWEET SPOT
MOST EXPENSIVE ADS ON TV
MOST EXPENSIVE TV ON ADS
GOOD NEWS FOR NEWS
FOLLOW-UPS – JOOST AND LINKEDIN
COCKTAIL CHATTER – MALLS AND CUBA
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TRUST IS TO BE EARNED: And apparently the media hasn’t earned it, at least in developed countries. The Edelman public relations firm did a worldwide survey – what it called a Trust Barometer -- to find out what people thought of business, media, religion, government, and non-governmental organizations. The question was “how much do you trust each institution to do what’s right.” Interestingly, the media scored lower (37%) than any other institution in developed countries (defined as Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States). Yet the media scored the second highest level of trust (56%), just behind business (60%) in the developing countries (defined as Brazil, China, India, Poland, Mexico and Russia).
Just for the record, in developed countries the scores go like this: Non-governmental organizations, NGO’s, scored the highest (53%), followed by business (47%), government and religion (both at 38%) and media (37%). In developing countries, it goes like this: Business (60%), media (56%), NGO’s (53%), government and religion (both at 46%).
THE SWEET SPOT: The language is a little convoluted, but one of the many messages that I found particularly interesting from the report is this one: “the vertical axis – the top-down, one-way dissemination by an authoritative voice of precise, controlled messages – has been firmly intersected by a horizontal axis of a continuous, messy, powerful, peer-to-peer conversation.” Notice – not replaced, but augmented. According to company President and CEO Richard Edelman, it’s at the nexus of these “vertical and horizontal axes” that companies will find the ‘sweet spot’ of communications and trust.
The report also indicates, yet again, the power of Word of Mouth, which we have talked about before in MfM. In the European Union, North America and Latin America, “a person like me” is the most credible deliverer of information about a company. In Asia, “a person like me” is second only to physicians. And in many countries, a conversation with a friend or peer is as trusted a source of information about a company as an article in a newspaper or TV news coverage. However, newspapers, TV and radio remain more credible than new media sources like blogs or a company website. The report notes that it used to be that ‘a person like me’ was one of our neighbors or people in our social circle, but now the commonality is that they share our interests, regardless of geographic location.
Finally, and I shouldn’t say finally because there is so much in the report, the survey says the “new green” – that is, the new hot button issue – is how companies treat their employees. “Fair treatment of employees” is the most or second most important activity (behind the environment) for a socially responsible company to engage in.
MOST EXPENSIVE ADS ON TV: Last year, it was ABC’s Desperate Housewives that took the top spot. This year, according to Advertising Age, ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy at $419,000 per 30-second spot is the most expensive show on network TV. Followed by: NBC’s Sunday Night Football ($358K), Fox’s The Simpson’s ($315K), NBC’s Heroes ($296K), ABC’s Desperate Housewives ($270K), CBS’s CSI ($248K), CBS’s Two and Half Men ($231K), and tied for 9th place at $208,000 per spot was CBS’s Survivor: China and ABC’s Private Practice. Of course, reporter Brian Steinberg notes that all of them will be toppled by American Idol in the spring.
MOST EXPENSIVE TV ON ADS: I’ll admit it. Sometimes my headlines are a stretch. In this case, we’re talking about the top media companies. Two lists came out. Both reporting that Time Warner is the biggest media company in the world. The oddity is the ‘slight’ difference in numbers. Advertising Age puts TW’s gross revenues at just under $34 Billion. Fortune magazine puts it at just under $45 Billion. Both lists also put the Walt Disney Company at the top of their lists, but again there is a wide disparity in numbers, with Advertising Age putting Disney’s revenues in 2006 at $16.8 Billion while Fortune magazine puts Disney’s revenues at $34.2 Billion. The disparity (I think) is that Advertising Age lists only the net U.S. media revenues while Fortune is listing worldwide revenues. That doesn’t quite explain why Advertising Age puts Comcast in the number two spot with revenues of about $27.4 Billion, but Comcast doesn’t even make Fortune magazine’s list of top entertainment companies.
In any case, the lists do provide some interesting fodder. For example, Time Warner as the top media company in the world ‘only’ has one-tenth the revenues of the world’s largest company – Wal-Mart which had more than $351 Billion in revenue in 2006. Staggering, isn’t it? In fact, even based on the larger revenue figures, Time Warner only makes it to the 48th spot on the Fortune 500 list. However, even so, the revenue of Time Warner at the top spot in the Advertising Age list is 100 times the revenue of the media company occupying the final 100th spot on the media company list – Schurz Communications at $300 Million. The editors at Advertising Age also note that the cost of entry to the top 100 media list has grown significantly over the last two decades. In 1986, a ‘mere’ $100 Million would have gained a company entry into the top 100 list; in 1999, that figure rose to $200 Million; and now in this latest report, it’s $300 Million.
GOOD NEWS FOR NEWS: It was only one line in the Associated Press report, and it was buried at the end, but it’s too interesting not to report. According to a poll by the AP and survey research firm Ipsos (which has the somewhat insulting slogan – Nobody’s Unpredictable), more than a quarter (28%) of the American public would like to see more news on television. This is up significantly from two years ago when it was 17%. This is the same poll that found nearly two-thirds of the American public (62%) believe television is getting worse and that nearly three-quarters (71%) believe there are too many reality shows on TV.
FOLLOW-UPS: TV-on-computer/ video-streaming site Joost has gone public. Regular readers of MfM will remember that we were part of the Beta testing of the site which up to now had been by invite only. But now it’s all aboard. Al-Jazeera says it is close to inking a deal with a major distributor in America. The British Broadcasting Company has launched the Americanized version of its World Now television newscast at 7:00 p.m. EST. After a week of watching, what I noticed most was not just that the report had a much broader worldwide perspective, but the commercials which included a spot about Qatar as the financial center of the world, Turkish Airways as connecting the world, and tourist attractions in India. As long as I am making some personal observations, LinkedIn, a social networking site for the business community, which we’ve mentioned in previous MfM’s appears to be taking off. In the last month, I have had more requests to link up from former students, and others, than I can remember receiving in the last year.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: In what must signal the end of an era, the International Council of Shopping Centers reports that only one enclosed shopping mall (the one-time haven of teenagers everywhere) was built in 2006 and none are planned for this year. According to an article in The New York Times by Stanford journalism professor and technology writer G. Paschal Zachary, Internet behemoth Google uses at least 450,000 computers in its search operations.
There is a website, cubaheadlines.com, which, as you would expect, has news and editorials about Cuba. All fine and dandy. But the part I love is that the banner at the top of the page is a map of Cuba (to be expected) a picture of Havana harbor (to be expected) and emblazoned across all this, the true symbol of Cuba – what looks to me like a 1953 Packard, in mint condition of course.
And finally, website Entrepreneur.com named ten businesses facing possible (and that’s the debatable word) extinction in the next ten years: Record stores (no explanation needed), camera film manufacturing (again, no explanation needed), crop dusters (commercial airlines are taking over); gay bars (because of greater acceptance in society); newspapers (at least the printing press plant part, but not the Internet part); pay phones whose numbers have dropped by half over the last decade (not just because of cell phones, but because cities are eliminating them because they’re gathering points for drug dealers); used bookstores (you can find what you want on the Internet); piggy banks (as we go to a paperless society); coin operated arcades which have dropped from 10,000 to 3,000 in the last decade because of video games at home and online; and -- wishful thinking -- telemarketers whose sales have been stagnant because of the national Do Not Call list, but who still managed to bring in $393 Billion last year.
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Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Message From Michael -- October 1, 2007
DON’T COUNT OUT DEAD TREE TECHNOLOGY
ONLINE VIDEO IS LIKE HAVING YOUR OWN DVR
ADVERTISING AND RODNEY DANGERFIELD
MONEY MAKING MEDIA MILLIONAIRES
COCKTAIL CHATTER
DON’T COUNT OUT DEAD TREE TECHNOLOGY: That wasn’t exactly the point of a MediaWeek Special Report looking at the 2008 media outlook, but when you crunch the numbers, like I did, you are reminded just how much of the advertising dollars they account for. Newspapers and magazines together account for nearly as much advertising spending ($73.41 Billion projected for 2007) as all of television (network, cable, spot) and radio combined ($76.77 Billion). Of course, they’re growing at a much slower rate than broadcasting. I am not going to try and summarize the report here, but instead offer a brief overview and a different way of looking at the numbers. The report offers three projections for growth from Price Waterhouse Cooper, Veronis Suhler Stevenson and ZenithOptimedia. I averaged the three to come up with a projected growth and then projected what 2008 means in actual numbers. (Yes, I know, I don’t have a life.) And I apologize, but there’s lots of numbers coming up.
Low man on the growth totem pole of course are newspapers which actually showed a decline from 2006 to 2007 in circulation and revenue, and are only expected to grow an average 2/3rds of one percent in 2008. But at around $49 Billion, it is still #1 and the 600-pound gorilla of the advertising picture. I have to confess that I didn’t realize that magazines (which comes in #2) accounted for such a huge part of the advertising dollar ($24.85 Billion projected for 2007). But, again, growth is pretty low, with an average of 4% projected for 2008. By comparison, TV in all its forms (network, cable and spot) is expected to average between 6.5% to 7%. Cable TV leads the pack at $20.2 Billion projected in 2007 and an average growth rate that will put it at roughly $21.63 Billion in 2008. Network TV comes in next with $18.45 Billion projected in 2007 and a projected growth rate that will put it at $19.68 Billion in 2008. And finally, Spot TV with a projected $18.3 Billion in 2007 growing to $19.5 Billion in 2008. Another thing I didn’t know (there’s so much I don’t know) is that radio advertising is actually larger than any of the individual TV segments, at least in 2007 with $19.82 Billion. But with a meager 2.2% average growth rate, radio will fall behind cable TV in 2008 and just barely ahead of the other two, reaching $20.26 Billion.
The wild card in all this, of course, is digital advertising. It is the third largest category of advertising, but of course that covers everything from MySpace and Yahoo to television video online and newspaper websites. Still, with an average growth rate of 19.8%, digital is on advertising steroids compared to the others. Digital in its myriad forms has projected revenues of $21.1 Billion in 2007, just barely ahead of Cable, but then leaping to a projected $25.28 Billion in 2008, just barely behind magazines. The report notes that broadcast networks are doing everything they can to leverage their brands, content and distribution system into new media; and that newspapers are leveraging their news brand online and garnering a greater growth (24%) than anybody else in their digital efforts.
ONLINE VIDEO IS LIKE HAVING YOUR OWN DVR: New research by NBC-Universal indicates that people are using online video like they use their DVR. They miss an episode. They just go online to watch it. And, says NBC’s Chief Digital Officer, George Kliavkoff, the research shows that online video viewing is not just for people wanting to watch snippets. More than four out of five (83%) who start watching an hour-long program online finish watching it online. Kliavkoff admitted he was worried that online video would “cannibalize” the on-air product. Even better, the research indicates the online viewing, like the DVR viewing actually adds to the viewing ‘incrementally.’ And, as a personal footnote, I missed the comedy Back To You that I mentioned in last week’s MfM, and it was nice to be able to go online to watch it.
As a footnote to this, DVD penetration has almost reached the level of VCR penetration, according to data from Nielsen Media. The difference is that VCR usage has been slowing declining from a high of 91.4% in May of 2002 to 86.4% in May of last year, while DVD usage has been steadily increasing from 42.6% in May of 2003 to 82.4% in May of last year.
ADVERTISING AND RODNEY DANGERFIELD: What do they have in common? They get no respect. At least, according to a survey by advertising giant J. Walter Thompson which found that only one in seven (14%) of Americans respect ad people. But, a consolation prize to my advertising friends, nearly a third (31%) saw ad people as a “necessary good” and that was better than politicians and car salesmen. Even more interesting to me was the finding that four out of five (84%) think too many things are over-hyped and three-quarters (72%) say they are tired of people trying to grab their attention “and sell me stuff.”
Okay, I have to at least acknowledge the more famous study released by the folks at J. Walter Thompson, even though it has made all the media rounds. That is people’s addiction to the Internet. The ‘snicker fact’ is that one in five actually admitted to having less sex because of the Internet. The less humorous but probably more telling factoid is that almost the same number (one in five) said they could go a whole week without the Internet but most said they couldn’t stand being without the Internet for a day (15%), or a couple of days (21%) or a few days (19%).
MONEY MAKING MEDIA MILLIONAIRES: Okay, say that five times real fast. Actually, don’t bother. Just say Oprah. Forbes magazine unofficially announced her queen of media, naming her as the top money-maker in the media world, earning $260 Million from June of 2006 to June of 2007. You’re probably saying ‘no surprise there.’ True. But how about the #2 spot – Jerry Seinfeld. Thanks to re-runs, he gets $60 Million a year. The one I wouldn’t have guessed, at #3, is Simon Cowell, who gets $45 Million a year, followed by David Letterman at $40 Million, Donald Trump (no, I don’t understand why he’s on the list either) at $32 Million, Jay Leno also at $32 Million, Phil McGraw at $30 Million, Judy Sheindlin (aka Judge Judy) at $30 Million, George Lopez at $26 Million, Keifer Sutherland at $22 Million, Regis Philbin at $21 Million, Tyra Banks at $18 Million, Rachel Ray at $16 Million, Katie Couric at $15 Million, Ellen deGeneres at $15 Million, Ryan Seacrest at $14 Million, Matt Lauer at $13 Million, Barbara Walters at $12 Million, Diane Sawyer at $12 Million and finally Meredith Viera at $10 Million. Just for the record, that’s 11 men and 9 women.
And as a footnote – Oprah also made Forbes 400 list of the world’s richest people. Even more fascinating – for the first time, everyone on that list is a Billionaire. Yes, including Oprah.
WORTH NOTING: This is somewhere between Cocktail Chatter and Factoid, but Nielsen Media has taken some of its own research advice and launched a social networking site, heynielsen.com. It is, according to the site description, “a place where you can make a name for yourself while trading opinions on TV, movies, music, personalities, web sites and more.”
COCKTAIL CHATTER: According to linguist K. David Harrison, author of When Languages Die, every two weeks one of the world’s 7,000 languages falls out of use. Some 2.5 Million U.S. adults took part in online dating in the last 30 days, according to research firm Mediamark Research Inc., with men accounting for 52% and women 48% of the users. Researchers at the University of Campinas in Brazil (where sugarcane-based ethanol accounts for a third of its fuel), say they boosted ethanol yield by 17% and shaved two hours off the fermentation process by circulating the fermentation brew past six magnets. Nicholas Negraponte and the folks at the One Laptop Per Child effort have announced a buy one get one program, starting in November, in which you can buy a computer for your child and one for a child in a developing nation.
ONLINE VIDEO IS LIKE HAVING YOUR OWN DVR
ADVERTISING AND RODNEY DANGERFIELD
MONEY MAKING MEDIA MILLIONAIRES
COCKTAIL CHATTER
DON’T COUNT OUT DEAD TREE TECHNOLOGY: That wasn’t exactly the point of a MediaWeek Special Report looking at the 2008 media outlook, but when you crunch the numbers, like I did, you are reminded just how much of the advertising dollars they account for. Newspapers and magazines together account for nearly as much advertising spending ($73.41 Billion projected for 2007) as all of television (network, cable, spot) and radio combined ($76.77 Billion). Of course, they’re growing at a much slower rate than broadcasting. I am not going to try and summarize the report here, but instead offer a brief overview and a different way of looking at the numbers. The report offers three projections for growth from Price Waterhouse Cooper, Veronis Suhler Stevenson and ZenithOptimedia. I averaged the three to come up with a projected growth and then projected what 2008 means in actual numbers. (Yes, I know, I don’t have a life.) And I apologize, but there’s lots of numbers coming up.
Low man on the growth totem pole of course are newspapers which actually showed a decline from 2006 to 2007 in circulation and revenue, and are only expected to grow an average 2/3rds of one percent in 2008. But at around $49 Billion, it is still #1 and the 600-pound gorilla of the advertising picture. I have to confess that I didn’t realize that magazines (which comes in #2) accounted for such a huge part of the advertising dollar ($24.85 Billion projected for 2007). But, again, growth is pretty low, with an average of 4% projected for 2008. By comparison, TV in all its forms (network, cable and spot) is expected to average between 6.5% to 7%. Cable TV leads the pack at $20.2 Billion projected in 2007 and an average growth rate that will put it at roughly $21.63 Billion in 2008. Network TV comes in next with $18.45 Billion projected in 2007 and a projected growth rate that will put it at $19.68 Billion in 2008. And finally, Spot TV with a projected $18.3 Billion in 2007 growing to $19.5 Billion in 2008. Another thing I didn’t know (there’s so much I don’t know) is that radio advertising is actually larger than any of the individual TV segments, at least in 2007 with $19.82 Billion. But with a meager 2.2% average growth rate, radio will fall behind cable TV in 2008 and just barely ahead of the other two, reaching $20.26 Billion.
The wild card in all this, of course, is digital advertising. It is the third largest category of advertising, but of course that covers everything from MySpace and Yahoo to television video online and newspaper websites. Still, with an average growth rate of 19.8%, digital is on advertising steroids compared to the others. Digital in its myriad forms has projected revenues of $21.1 Billion in 2007, just barely ahead of Cable, but then leaping to a projected $25.28 Billion in 2008, just barely behind magazines. The report notes that broadcast networks are doing everything they can to leverage their brands, content and distribution system into new media; and that newspapers are leveraging their news brand online and garnering a greater growth (24%) than anybody else in their digital efforts.
ONLINE VIDEO IS LIKE HAVING YOUR OWN DVR: New research by NBC-Universal indicates that people are using online video like they use their DVR. They miss an episode. They just go online to watch it. And, says NBC’s Chief Digital Officer, George Kliavkoff, the research shows that online video viewing is not just for people wanting to watch snippets. More than four out of five (83%) who start watching an hour-long program online finish watching it online. Kliavkoff admitted he was worried that online video would “cannibalize” the on-air product. Even better, the research indicates the online viewing, like the DVR viewing actually adds to the viewing ‘incrementally.’ And, as a personal footnote, I missed the comedy Back To You that I mentioned in last week’s MfM, and it was nice to be able to go online to watch it.
As a footnote to this, DVD penetration has almost reached the level of VCR penetration, according to data from Nielsen Media. The difference is that VCR usage has been slowing declining from a high of 91.4% in May of 2002 to 86.4% in May of last year, while DVD usage has been steadily increasing from 42.6% in May of 2003 to 82.4% in May of last year.
ADVERTISING AND RODNEY DANGERFIELD: What do they have in common? They get no respect. At least, according to a survey by advertising giant J. Walter Thompson which found that only one in seven (14%) of Americans respect ad people. But, a consolation prize to my advertising friends, nearly a third (31%) saw ad people as a “necessary good” and that was better than politicians and car salesmen. Even more interesting to me was the finding that four out of five (84%) think too many things are over-hyped and three-quarters (72%) say they are tired of people trying to grab their attention “and sell me stuff.”
Okay, I have to at least acknowledge the more famous study released by the folks at J. Walter Thompson, even though it has made all the media rounds. That is people’s addiction to the Internet. The ‘snicker fact’ is that one in five actually admitted to having less sex because of the Internet. The less humorous but probably more telling factoid is that almost the same number (one in five) said they could go a whole week without the Internet but most said they couldn’t stand being without the Internet for a day (15%), or a couple of days (21%) or a few days (19%).
MONEY MAKING MEDIA MILLIONAIRES: Okay, say that five times real fast. Actually, don’t bother. Just say Oprah. Forbes magazine unofficially announced her queen of media, naming her as the top money-maker in the media world, earning $260 Million from June of 2006 to June of 2007. You’re probably saying ‘no surprise there.’ True. But how about the #2 spot – Jerry Seinfeld. Thanks to re-runs, he gets $60 Million a year. The one I wouldn’t have guessed, at #3, is Simon Cowell, who gets $45 Million a year, followed by David Letterman at $40 Million, Donald Trump (no, I don’t understand why he’s on the list either) at $32 Million, Jay Leno also at $32 Million, Phil McGraw at $30 Million, Judy Sheindlin (aka Judge Judy) at $30 Million, George Lopez at $26 Million, Keifer Sutherland at $22 Million, Regis Philbin at $21 Million, Tyra Banks at $18 Million, Rachel Ray at $16 Million, Katie Couric at $15 Million, Ellen deGeneres at $15 Million, Ryan Seacrest at $14 Million, Matt Lauer at $13 Million, Barbara Walters at $12 Million, Diane Sawyer at $12 Million and finally Meredith Viera at $10 Million. Just for the record, that’s 11 men and 9 women.
And as a footnote – Oprah also made Forbes 400 list of the world’s richest people. Even more fascinating – for the first time, everyone on that list is a Billionaire. Yes, including Oprah.
WORTH NOTING: This is somewhere between Cocktail Chatter and Factoid, but Nielsen Media has taken some of its own research advice and launched a social networking site, heynielsen.com. It is, according to the site description, “a place where you can make a name for yourself while trading opinions on TV, movies, music, personalities, web sites and more.”
COCKTAIL CHATTER: According to linguist K. David Harrison, author of When Languages Die, every two weeks one of the world’s 7,000 languages falls out of use. Some 2.5 Million U.S. adults took part in online dating in the last 30 days, according to research firm Mediamark Research Inc., with men accounting for 52% and women 48% of the users. Researchers at the University of Campinas in Brazil (where sugarcane-based ethanol accounts for a third of its fuel), say they boosted ethanol yield by 17% and shaved two hours off the fermentation process by circulating the fermentation brew past six magnets. Nicholas Negraponte and the folks at the One Laptop Per Child effort have announced a buy one get one program, starting in November, in which you can buy a computer for your child and one for a child in a developing nation.
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