OLYMPIAN NUMBERS FOR THE OLYMPICS
MARKETING MIND GAMES
MORE TWITTER-PATION
WEBSITE DE JEUR
COCKTAIL CHATTER – INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY
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.
OLYMPIAN NUMBERS FOR THE OLYMPICS: The opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics drew the highest rating for a summer games opening ceremony since 1960 and recorded the highest viewership for an Olympics televised IN the United States but FROM a foreign country. The elaborate and expensive opening ceremony drew an 18.6 national rating (the Rome Olympics in 1960 drew an 18.1) and 34.2 Million U.S. viewers (the 1996 Atlanta opening ceremony drew 39.8 Million U.S. viewers). To add to NBC’s crowing and other networks’ woe-ing (I know that’s silly, but it sounded good), the NBCOlympics.com website had 70 Million page views, according to data supplied by NBC to the New York Times, and that is ten times the traffic generated on the website for the opening ceremony in Athens, Greece, four years ago. And further indication of the many things I don’t know, the Winter Olympics out-perform the Summer Olympics pretty consistently. In fact, according to historical trends data from Nielsen Media, only two Olympics have scored in the top 100 of telecasts: both from the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer.
And, if you want to entertain yourself for a few hours, visit the “Official Website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games” – http://en.beijing2008.cn. This is the One World One Dream website of the Beijing Olympic Committee (BOCOG). The cynics amongst my many MfM readers will find particularly interesting the bulletins/ media section. For example, BOCOG has a letter extending its condolences to the family of the relatives of a U.S. volleyball team coach and their guide who were attacked, one of whom was killed. “At present, investigation into the rare and tragic incident is still under way. Beijing is a safe city, and the police are doing their best to provide a safe environment for all tourists, Chinese and International during their travels in Beijing.” Equally interesting (again, I add, as always – at least to me) the links from the main site to other country’s sites. The U.S. site, of course, goes to NBCOlympics.com. The Australian site though goes to a Yahoo Sports website which has the Olympics as just part of the site, along with Aussie Rules football and Cricket. The India link goes to a YouTube address that, as far as I can tell, has no connection to the Olympics. Same for the Iraq link. Germany had two links to ARD and ZDF, both media groups. The link to China was cctv.com and the link to ‘Chinese Taipei” was the Channel 5 network there. No surprise there, but how about the link to Greece. It came back with a warning of viewing restrictions because it could not confirm that I was viewing the live streaming video portal from “certain European Broadcasting Union (EBU) territories.”
Factoid of the Week: As along as I’m doing the Olympic thing… from the official Chinese Olympic website comes the factoid that there are 1.7 Million Volunteers at the Olympics. Let me repeat that -- 1.7 MILLION.
MARKETING MIND GAMES: Except that they’re not games. They’re dead serious. Two recent news articles have stuck in my head for some time, and although they’re not ‘normal’ MfM material, I realized that if I found them so interesting that I’m still thinking about them a month later, that you might find them equally interesting. The first is about a company called Neurofocus which measures brain waves to determine how engaged people are with a commercial or promotional spot. It ‘measures’ attention levels, emotional reactions, and memory retention to derive gauges of persuasion, awareness and novelty – what the company calls the six critical metrics that determine consumers’ engagement with your brand, with your marketing, your messaging or other content. As reported in a previous MfM, Nielsen has invested in the company. What I found particularly interesting was in the NPR report (one of several news articles about this), CBS research chief David Poltrack noted that when they tested program promos, people might find the promo interesting but then forgot the most basic information – when and where the program was to air. An issue I have found with a lot of promotion. The other article was in the New York Times and dealt with a doctor in Africa who turned to some of the largest multi-national corporations to teach her how to convince people in the developing world to wash their hands with soap – a simple step that could cut deaths through disease and diarrhea in half. The trick, according to the savvy marketers, was to integrate the practice into people’s daily habits or routines. The example given was the introduction by Procter & Gamble of Febreeze. Even though people expressed an interest in having a product that would do away with bad smells (for example, from a coat worn while at a smoke-filled bar), bad smells didn’t happen enough in people’s lives to make Febreeze a part of their lives. So the P&G psychologists had to “create habits for products.” In the case of Febreeze, they needed to find other cues. In this case, spots were created showing people using Febreeze as part of their daily cleaning routine. Habits were created, and Febreeze went from a product that was almost cancelled to one which grosses $650 Million in North America alone. In the case of the good doctor, the trick was to convince people in Ghana that toilets (normally associated with cleanliness in that culture) had to be associated with disgust which would then prompt them to wash their hands with soap. It worked.
MORE TWITTER-PATION: For those readers who found the 140-character Twitter communication strange, get ready for something even stranger. A website that collects twitter communication so you can find “real people who really matter.” Twellow.com sorts through the myriad of messages sent by Twitterers, categorizes those millions of inter-personal messages and then sorts them into different niches so you can find people with common interests, or as the website puts it, sift out people “who can help bring your vision to reality, whatever that vision may be.” The creators of the website say if you have a twitter account, you are probably already listed on twello because twitter messages are ‘publicly available.’ Just go to the website, click on any of the multitude of categories, and find people who are twittering the most in that category, whether it’s atheism, vegetarianism, public relations, news reporting or telecommunications – you name it.
WEBSITE DE JEUR: On a completely un-related note, another search engine has been launched to try and compete with Google. It’s called Cuil and it claims that it searches three times as many websites as Google and ten times as many as Microsoft. It also says that it analyzes the Web rather than the Web user to make it more efficient and more private. And as long as I’m talking about new websites… Beet.tv which actually isn’t that new (founded in 2006) is showing up more and more in my ramblings on the Web. It describes itself as “the first business oriented video blog” focusing on online video and its impact on new media.
FACTOID OF THE WEEK: Yeah, I know I already did one factoid, but I just thought this was interesting enough to add – the number of American adults using online coupons rose 39% to 36 Million between 2005 and 2008, according to a survey by Simmons/ Experian Research and Coupons Inc.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: The New York Times labeled him the international man of mystery. Vivi Nevo is said to be the largest individual shareholder of Time Warner, was once the largest private investor in Goldman Sachs, is engaged to China’s most famous actress (Zhang Ziyi, the star of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), vacations on Rupert Murdoch’s sailboat, attended Madonna’s wedding, and yet nobody knows his background or exactly how he made his fortune, except that he parlayed a modest family inheritance into a fortune through investing in media and Internet companies. “Of all the characters the media business attracts – and creates for that matter,” says the New York Times article, “perhaps no one is more remarked upon, wondered about or marveled at than Mr. Nevo.” The article makes clear that while his media influence is subtle, it’s also pervasive.
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Message From Michael -- August 4, 2008
CHINA BEATS THE U.S.
NOW YOU SEE IT; NOW YOU DON’T
BUYING THE NEWS
PAYING FOR CITIZEN NEWS
NEWS DIRECTOR DIVERSITY
THE INTERNET CANARY
COCKTAIL CHATTER
COMPLIMENTS AND KUDOS
GIVING CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE
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.
CHINA BEATS THE U.S. And, no, I’m not talking about the Olympics although that will be interesting to see. No, it’s the Internet. According to the China Internet Network Information center (CNNIC), the number of ‘netizens’ (as they refer to them) in China reached 253 Million in June. Of that, 214 Million are broadband users, which, the release from the CNNIC says, “tops the world.” And here is an interesting twist to the info, the China domain name – CN – has become the world’s largest country domain name. In case you were wondering, DE, which is the country domain name for Germany used to be the number one country domain name. Nearly a third of the Chinese netizens (28.9%) access the Internet by cell phone with the number of cell phones reaching more than 73 Million. The report also says the “use rate of network news” has reached 81.5% and adds, “the Internet can be said to have become the mainstream media with huge influence and the most development potentiality in the field of mass communication.”
Okay, a little perspective. There are 220 Million Americans online. That represents more than 70% of the U.S. population which, you may remember, recently passed the 300 Million mark. The Chinese numbers are based on a population of 1.3 Billion which, by the way, is one-fifth of the entire world population. Just for a little more perspective, the last figures I could find for India put the Internet population at 46 Million-plus with a population of 1.1 Billion people.
NOW YOU SEE IT; NOW YOU DON’T. That is what’s happening in some TV newscasts as advertisers go for product placement. The example making the rounds centers on Meredith-owned Las Vegas Fox affiliate KVVU where fake cups of McDonald’s iced coffee sit on the anchor desks during the news-and-lifestyle portion of the morning show. Reportedly McDonald’s has also placed products on Chicago’s Fox-owned WFLD, Tribune’s Seattle Fox affiliate KCPQ, and Univision 41 in New York City. Interestingly though I could only find the one article dealing with Las Vegas. It appears the one story from the Las Vegas Sun has been picked up by all the media. KVVU News Director Adam Bradshaw says the product placement is only in the lifestyle portion of the morning show, after 7 a.m.; that he wouldn’t put such products in the hard news shows like the 5pm and 10pm and that the product placement would not affect their coverage of McDonald’s. (Thanks to former anchor turned college teacher turned doctoral candidate Rebecca Coates for this tip.)
As a side note to this, there are groups and websites devoted solely to product placement. Website productplacement.biz, for example, makes the case that the growth in product placement and branded entertainment is a natural result of the increase in media choices available to the consumer. Website iTVX.net even has devised a system to equate the value of a product placement segment to a :30 second commercial. Both sites extol the virtues of product placement.
BUYING THE NEWS. If the journalists amongst you found the product placement upsetting, get ready to be real upset. A survey of senior American marketers found that one in five (19%) say their organizations have bought advertising in return for a news story. The survey on behalf of PRWeek and Manning Selvage & Lee also found that one in ten have had “an implicit/non-verbal agreement’ with a reporter or editor that they would get favorable coverage in exchange for advertising, and one in 12 (8%) said they paid or provided a gift of value to an editor or producer to get their product placed in a news story. The survey authors say the latest results are consistent with previous years. The authors say while some marketers see this as simply an extension of product placement, “any kind of undisclosed paid placement spells trouble for consumers, the media and the marketing industry.”
PAYING FOR CITIZEN NEWS. In the Tampa/ St. Petersburg market, Gannett-owned CBS affiliate WTSP is soliciting so-called citizen journalists to shoot video for them. Okay, that may not sound so new in today’s citizen media world, but the difference is that WTSP is paying $20 a pop for the video and is trying to build a stable of 20 of these citizen correspondents to contribute regularly to their newscasts and webcasts. If the citizen shooter provides ten pieces each quarter, for a year, they get to keep the camera and accessories provided by the station. The posting on the station website has already drawn a wide variety of responses, from it would be great to get the tiny slices of life on air to a paramedic worrying about more amateurs getting in the way of emergency services.
On a related note, locally-owned low-power CBS affiliated KPSP is trying to use teen aged viewers as part of their news gathering resource. Former Clear Channel CEO Don Perry took over as VP/ GM of the little station after leaving the mega-group after the sale of its television properties. The local philanthropist owners wanted the station to “play a vital role in the fabric of the community.” Perry says his goal is to re-invent the station, starting with re-training everybody to run all the equipment so they can “deputize camera operators as needed” on a big story, partnering with the local Gannett owned newspaper, as well as making greater use of consumer generated content such as the teen agers. (Thanks to Peabody Awards director Horace Newcomb for these two tips.)
NEWS DIRECTOR DIVERSITY. Although already reported, worth noting again is the Radio Television News Directors’ Association survey showing there are more women news directors in television than ever before and that the percentage of minority news directors in television has also reached an all-time high. The numbers are still small – 28.3% for women and 15.5% for minorities. The report also notes that the percentage of women GMs at stations with local news ‘edged up’ to 16.3% while the percentage of minority GMs jumped to 9.8%. The percentage of minorities in TV news now stands at one fourth (23.6%) but that’s for ALL TV news. For just non-Hispanic TV news, the number drops slightly to 20.1%. The percentage of minorities in radio rose slightly year to year to reach one in ten (11.8%) while the percentage of minority radio news directors fell (to 5.9%). As a bit of perspective, the percentage of minorities in newspapers stands at 13.5%.
THE INTERNET CANARY. That is one of the descriptions given to Internet website, 4chan.org. Using the Internet lingo, it is a “meme” which Wikipedia defines as the spread of ideas and cultural phenomenon, such as tunes, catch phrases, beliefs, fashion and technology. It is one of those places that is a harbinger of future things on the Internet. Let me warn you though, it can be both odd and off-putting in many ways. (Thanks to KPLC GM Jim Serra for this reminder.)
COCKTAIL CHATTER. This isn’t really cocktail chatter. It’s more like me slipping into blog commentary, but the line used by one of the characters on a recent episode of the NBC show My Name’s Earl is too good not to mention. The pregnant ex-wife of Earl talking to a man threatening to shoot her, warns him that if he were to shoot “a hot blonde with a multi-racial child” that “Nancy Grace will have you convicted before the first commercial break.”
KUDOS AND COMPLIMENTS. Normally, MfM is reserved for media trends and research, but every once in a while, we slip in a kudo or two. Today’s goes to client station KFVS in Cape Girardeau, which GM Mike Smythe notes, has won Medium Market station of the year in Illinois for the sixth straight year. No other station has ever won the award six times, and on top of which KFVS is in Missouri, where it also has won several awards.
GIVE CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE: And the credit goes to the readers of MfM. Oftentimes readers send in recommendations for articles. This past week, there were half a dozen such recommendations. So, thank you. And proper credit is given at the bottom of each article. Also I have to compliment the TV Newsday website which is one of the dozens of places I go for news. It continues to get better and better. Several times this past month, general managers, news directors and others have mentioned stories to me that TV Newsday broke.
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.
NOW YOU SEE IT; NOW YOU DON’T
BUYING THE NEWS
PAYING FOR CITIZEN NEWS
NEWS DIRECTOR DIVERSITY
THE INTERNET CANARY
COCKTAIL CHATTER
COMPLIMENTS AND KUDOS
GIVING CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE
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.
CHINA BEATS THE U.S. And, no, I’m not talking about the Olympics although that will be interesting to see. No, it’s the Internet. According to the China Internet Network Information center (CNNIC), the number of ‘netizens’ (as they refer to them) in China reached 253 Million in June. Of that, 214 Million are broadband users, which, the release from the CNNIC says, “tops the world.” And here is an interesting twist to the info, the China domain name – CN – has become the world’s largest country domain name. In case you were wondering, DE, which is the country domain name for Germany used to be the number one country domain name. Nearly a third of the Chinese netizens (28.9%) access the Internet by cell phone with the number of cell phones reaching more than 73 Million. The report also says the “use rate of network news” has reached 81.5% and adds, “the Internet can be said to have become the mainstream media with huge influence and the most development potentiality in the field of mass communication.”
Okay, a little perspective. There are 220 Million Americans online. That represents more than 70% of the U.S. population which, you may remember, recently passed the 300 Million mark. The Chinese numbers are based on a population of 1.3 Billion which, by the way, is one-fifth of the entire world population. Just for a little more perspective, the last figures I could find for India put the Internet population at 46 Million-plus with a population of 1.1 Billion people.
NOW YOU SEE IT; NOW YOU DON’T. That is what’s happening in some TV newscasts as advertisers go for product placement. The example making the rounds centers on Meredith-owned Las Vegas Fox affiliate KVVU where fake cups of McDonald’s iced coffee sit on the anchor desks during the news-and-lifestyle portion of the morning show. Reportedly McDonald’s has also placed products on Chicago’s Fox-owned WFLD, Tribune’s Seattle Fox affiliate KCPQ, and Univision 41 in New York City. Interestingly though I could only find the one article dealing with Las Vegas. It appears the one story from the Las Vegas Sun has been picked up by all the media. KVVU News Director Adam Bradshaw says the product placement is only in the lifestyle portion of the morning show, after 7 a.m.; that he wouldn’t put such products in the hard news shows like the 5pm and 10pm and that the product placement would not affect their coverage of McDonald’s. (Thanks to former anchor turned college teacher turned doctoral candidate Rebecca Coates for this tip.)
As a side note to this, there are groups and websites devoted solely to product placement. Website productplacement.biz, for example, makes the case that the growth in product placement and branded entertainment is a natural result of the increase in media choices available to the consumer. Website iTVX.net even has devised a system to equate the value of a product placement segment to a :30 second commercial. Both sites extol the virtues of product placement.
BUYING THE NEWS. If the journalists amongst you found the product placement upsetting, get ready to be real upset. A survey of senior American marketers found that one in five (19%) say their organizations have bought advertising in return for a news story. The survey on behalf of PRWeek and Manning Selvage & Lee also found that one in ten have had “an implicit/non-verbal agreement’ with a reporter or editor that they would get favorable coverage in exchange for advertising, and one in 12 (8%) said they paid or provided a gift of value to an editor or producer to get their product placed in a news story. The survey authors say the latest results are consistent with previous years. The authors say while some marketers see this as simply an extension of product placement, “any kind of undisclosed paid placement spells trouble for consumers, the media and the marketing industry.”
PAYING FOR CITIZEN NEWS. In the Tampa/ St. Petersburg market, Gannett-owned CBS affiliate WTSP is soliciting so-called citizen journalists to shoot video for them. Okay, that may not sound so new in today’s citizen media world, but the difference is that WTSP is paying $20 a pop for the video and is trying to build a stable of 20 of these citizen correspondents to contribute regularly to their newscasts and webcasts. If the citizen shooter provides ten pieces each quarter, for a year, they get to keep the camera and accessories provided by the station. The posting on the station website has already drawn a wide variety of responses, from it would be great to get the tiny slices of life on air to a paramedic worrying about more amateurs getting in the way of emergency services.
On a related note, locally-owned low-power CBS affiliated KPSP is trying to use teen aged viewers as part of their news gathering resource. Former Clear Channel CEO Don Perry took over as VP/ GM of the little station after leaving the mega-group after the sale of its television properties. The local philanthropist owners wanted the station to “play a vital role in the fabric of the community.” Perry says his goal is to re-invent the station, starting with re-training everybody to run all the equipment so they can “deputize camera operators as needed” on a big story, partnering with the local Gannett owned newspaper, as well as making greater use of consumer generated content such as the teen agers. (Thanks to Peabody Awards director Horace Newcomb for these two tips.)
NEWS DIRECTOR DIVERSITY. Although already reported, worth noting again is the Radio Television News Directors’ Association survey showing there are more women news directors in television than ever before and that the percentage of minority news directors in television has also reached an all-time high. The numbers are still small – 28.3% for women and 15.5% for minorities. The report also notes that the percentage of women GMs at stations with local news ‘edged up’ to 16.3% while the percentage of minority GMs jumped to 9.8%. The percentage of minorities in TV news now stands at one fourth (23.6%) but that’s for ALL TV news. For just non-Hispanic TV news, the number drops slightly to 20.1%. The percentage of minorities in radio rose slightly year to year to reach one in ten (11.8%) while the percentage of minority radio news directors fell (to 5.9%). As a bit of perspective, the percentage of minorities in newspapers stands at 13.5%.
THE INTERNET CANARY. That is one of the descriptions given to Internet website, 4chan.org. Using the Internet lingo, it is a “meme” which Wikipedia defines as the spread of ideas and cultural phenomenon, such as tunes, catch phrases, beliefs, fashion and technology. It is one of those places that is a harbinger of future things on the Internet. Let me warn you though, it can be both odd and off-putting in many ways. (Thanks to KPLC GM Jim Serra for this reminder.)
COCKTAIL CHATTER. This isn’t really cocktail chatter. It’s more like me slipping into blog commentary, but the line used by one of the characters on a recent episode of the NBC show My Name’s Earl is too good not to mention. The pregnant ex-wife of Earl talking to a man threatening to shoot her, warns him that if he were to shoot “a hot blonde with a multi-racial child” that “Nancy Grace will have you convicted before the first commercial break.”
KUDOS AND COMPLIMENTS. Normally, MfM is reserved for media trends and research, but every once in a while, we slip in a kudo or two. Today’s goes to client station KFVS in Cape Girardeau, which GM Mike Smythe notes, has won Medium Market station of the year in Illinois for the sixth straight year. No other station has ever won the award six times, and on top of which KFVS is in Missouri, where it also has won several awards.
GIVE CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE: And the credit goes to the readers of MfM. Oftentimes readers send in recommendations for articles. This past week, there were half a dozen such recommendations. So, thank you. And proper credit is given at the bottom of each article. Also I have to compliment the TV Newsday website which is one of the dozens of places I go for news. It continues to get better and better. Several times this past month, general managers, news directors and others have mentioned stories to me that TV Newsday broke.
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.
Message From Michael -- July 21, 2008
DIGITAL DROP-OUTS
AND THE WORD IS -- DOOMED
AND THE WINNER IS --- DANG.
AND THE WINNER IS – DEPENDS.
AND THE ONE TO WATCH IS
MEDIA GORILLA FOLLOW-UP
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.
DIGITAL DROP-OUTS: You hear so much about the Web and new media that it’s sometimes easy to think everybody is Internet inclined. Not so, according to a report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The focus of the report was on broadband adoption. Yes, indeed it is up – some 55% of adult Americans now have broadband Internet connections. That’s a 17% increase year to year. And interestingly, monthly broadband bills are actually lower (by 4%) this year than three years ago in 2005. Broadband Internet penetration among upper-income Americans is reaching the “saturation” point at 85%. Low-income Americans actually showed a drop, or were flat, year to year in terms of broadband adoption. Older Americans are adopting broadband at a slightly higher rate than the average. Some of this you may have already heard about. But how about dial-up users. They still make up about 10% of the Internet world. Some don’t have it for economic or access reasons, although nearly two-thirds (60%) say they just aren’t interested in broadband. Then there are the non-Internet users. More than a quarter (27%) of adults in the United States just don’t use the Internet. Age and income are two factors. Still, the report notes that a third (33%) of these non-Internet users simply are not interested with another 9% saying it’s just too difficult or frustrating and another 7% seeing it as “a waste of time.”
As a side note to this, there is a website (digitaldivide.net) that is focused on bridging the divide in digitaldom between the have’s and have not’s – a problem “painstakingly clear” in developing countries but existent also in North America. The organizers of the Digital Divide Network say, “there is a moral imperative to ensure that everyone has equal access to information technology.”
AND THE WORD IS: Doomed, if you don’t start now. That’s the underlying message in a report issued by market research firm Borrell Associates on local web revenues. Although I’ve reported on it before, noting that the report warned that Internet ‘pure-plays’ could “gobble up” local advertising revenue, a second reading proved even scarier. (Yes, I need a life, but it really is worthwhile to review these things a second time sometimes.) The report predicts (or warns, if you prefer) that by 2012, that there will be ‘winners’ in LOCAL online advertising and whoever that winner is, will be “the second or third largest media outlets in their markets in terms of total revenues.” And right now, newspapers have a formidable lead and the biggest head start. Borrell projects total LOCAL (let me emphasize that word again) online ad spending to hit $13.1 Billion this year, up from $8.7 Billion last year. Of that amount, local newspapers will score $3.7 Billion this year, local TV stations $1.2 Billion and local radio stations $255 Million. I know many of my MfM readers are math impaired, so let me point out something. You add up all three sectors and you come up with roughly $5.1 Billion. Subtract that from the $13.1 Billion, and you are $8 Billion short. Guess who’s getting that? You guessed it. The Internet pure plays – Google, Yahoo along with places like Craigslist.
AND THE WINNER IS: Danged if I know. Two separate reports, but both citing data from Hitwise research, show different winners for top U.S. broadcast network sites. One cites PBS.org as the leading site with a quarter of all visits (24.23%). The other cites ABC.com as the winner with a quarter of the visits (26.94%). Interestingly the report citing ABC does not even include PBS in the mix, and that may explain the difference. Plus they are for separate weeks. The reports are consistent in that CBS, NBC and Fox are in a dead heat, with less than a percentage point separating them in both reports. They are also consistent in that the CW gets only a quarter of the visits the other networks get while the MyNetworkTV site gets less than a single percentage point. In the report with the PBS numbers, ABC comes in second (19.35%). That report by Julieanne Smolinski at TVWeek says PBS beat the others in total U.S. visits in part because of video usage online while another report cites the website redesign and a search engine optimization effort.
AND THE WINNER IS: Depends. Month to month, week to week, the honors for top news website will vary among the top three: Yahoo News, CNN, and MSNBC. They all hover around 35 Million unique visitors a month, but CNN usually beats the other two by ten minutes or more in terms of time spent online. Its visitors average a half hour or more at a time. The other two are in the 20-minute-plus range. After the top three, the battle is between AOL and the New York Times, with the number of visitors a month dropping significantly to a little over 20 Million visitors a month. But both do average about half an hour in time spent. Rounding out the top ten in varying order, depending on the week or month, are Tribune group, Gannett, ABC News, Google News, Fox and some times USA Today. Interestingly (as I always say -- at least to me), Yahoo News averages three times as many visitors as Google News (an average of 30-plus Million unique visitors compared to Google’s 11 Million) and usually twice as much time spent by its visitors (an average of 20-plus minutes compared to Google’s 12 minutes.) Considering the previous article, I should note that NPR averages about 3.7 Million unique visitors to its site and they spend an average of six to seven minutes. Lastly, in further proof that I need to get a life, I averaged the amount of time spent online at these various websites. The average time spent was 9 minutes and 49 seconds while the median for time spent was 13 minutes and 30 seconds. I give that, because it gives you something to compare with the time spent on your website.
AND THE ONE TO WATCH IS: Actually there are ten to watch. Ten web startups that Technology Review says are worth watching. In keeping with websites nowadays, they all have some weird names, but not so weird potential. My two favorites help turn everyone into a reporter (not a journalist, just a reporter) on the scene. Qik lets you capture audio and video and stream it in real time to its website and from there to any other platforms. In essence you can broadcast live from your phone. Ushahidi is the Swahili word for “testimony” and is the name of an application developed during Kenya’s chaotic and deadly presidential election last December. It picks up text messages from any mobile phone and displays them on a Google Maps application to track trouble spots. The founder says it can be used in any crisis situation, such as the Katrina disaster, to track problems. A third website is a kind of traffic reporter. Dash Navigation is a two-way Internet-connected traffic network that employs traffic data but then also tracks users’ cars through GPS data to help deal with traffic jams. Others include Pinger which describes itself as “noninterruptive voice mail” – you record a voice message on the Pinger server and it sends out a text message to the recipient telling them they have a message to pick up. Pownce allows you to send and receive large multimedia files to specific people. As the review put it, think Twitter meets Napster. QTech is a sort of electronic post it note which generates reminders about everything from meetings to grocery lists via phone, text message, RSS feed, e-mail or Web interface. 33Across uses self-provided information and Web browsing to find out who are the “viral promoters” who influence the buying of products. Peer39 is a semantic-advertising company whose algorithms help customize advertising messages to a very detailed level based on blogs, social networks, forums and Web page use. Mashery, as its name implies, allows a sort of mash-up of Websites, letting them talk to each other using API’s (application programming interfaces). Anagran uses technology to prescreen data so that it can tell which packets are which (packets are those little bits that all Internet info is broken into); and then it prioritizes their sending.
MEDIA GORILLA FOLLOW-UP: It almost invariably happens. After I send out an MfM, I find new information or information I forgot to put in. In last week’s MfM about TV as the dominant medium, I left out the latest Nielsen numbers on TV viewing, which has hit an all-time high. Americans watch an average of 127 hours and 15 minutes of TV a month. That’s up from 121 hours and 48 minutes last year. Americans also spend 26 hours and 26 minutes a month in front of their computers. Two hours and 19 minutes of that time is spent watching online video.
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.
AND THE WORD IS -- DOOMED
AND THE WINNER IS --- DANG.
AND THE WINNER IS – DEPENDS.
AND THE ONE TO WATCH IS
MEDIA GORILLA FOLLOW-UP
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.
DIGITAL DROP-OUTS: You hear so much about the Web and new media that it’s sometimes easy to think everybody is Internet inclined. Not so, according to a report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The focus of the report was on broadband adoption. Yes, indeed it is up – some 55% of adult Americans now have broadband Internet connections. That’s a 17% increase year to year. And interestingly, monthly broadband bills are actually lower (by 4%) this year than three years ago in 2005. Broadband Internet penetration among upper-income Americans is reaching the “saturation” point at 85%. Low-income Americans actually showed a drop, or were flat, year to year in terms of broadband adoption. Older Americans are adopting broadband at a slightly higher rate than the average. Some of this you may have already heard about. But how about dial-up users. They still make up about 10% of the Internet world. Some don’t have it for economic or access reasons, although nearly two-thirds (60%) say they just aren’t interested in broadband. Then there are the non-Internet users. More than a quarter (27%) of adults in the United States just don’t use the Internet. Age and income are two factors. Still, the report notes that a third (33%) of these non-Internet users simply are not interested with another 9% saying it’s just too difficult or frustrating and another 7% seeing it as “a waste of time.”
As a side note to this, there is a website (digitaldivide.net) that is focused on bridging the divide in digitaldom between the have’s and have not’s – a problem “painstakingly clear” in developing countries but existent also in North America. The organizers of the Digital Divide Network say, “there is a moral imperative to ensure that everyone has equal access to information technology.”
AND THE WORD IS: Doomed, if you don’t start now. That’s the underlying message in a report issued by market research firm Borrell Associates on local web revenues. Although I’ve reported on it before, noting that the report warned that Internet ‘pure-plays’ could “gobble up” local advertising revenue, a second reading proved even scarier. (Yes, I need a life, but it really is worthwhile to review these things a second time sometimes.) The report predicts (or warns, if you prefer) that by 2012, that there will be ‘winners’ in LOCAL online advertising and whoever that winner is, will be “the second or third largest media outlets in their markets in terms of total revenues.” And right now, newspapers have a formidable lead and the biggest head start. Borrell projects total LOCAL (let me emphasize that word again) online ad spending to hit $13.1 Billion this year, up from $8.7 Billion last year. Of that amount, local newspapers will score $3.7 Billion this year, local TV stations $1.2 Billion and local radio stations $255 Million. I know many of my MfM readers are math impaired, so let me point out something. You add up all three sectors and you come up with roughly $5.1 Billion. Subtract that from the $13.1 Billion, and you are $8 Billion short. Guess who’s getting that? You guessed it. The Internet pure plays – Google, Yahoo along with places like Craigslist.
AND THE WINNER IS: Danged if I know. Two separate reports, but both citing data from Hitwise research, show different winners for top U.S. broadcast network sites. One cites PBS.org as the leading site with a quarter of all visits (24.23%). The other cites ABC.com as the winner with a quarter of the visits (26.94%). Interestingly the report citing ABC does not even include PBS in the mix, and that may explain the difference. Plus they are for separate weeks. The reports are consistent in that CBS, NBC and Fox are in a dead heat, with less than a percentage point separating them in both reports. They are also consistent in that the CW gets only a quarter of the visits the other networks get while the MyNetworkTV site gets less than a single percentage point. In the report with the PBS numbers, ABC comes in second (19.35%). That report by Julieanne Smolinski at TVWeek says PBS beat the others in total U.S. visits in part because of video usage online while another report cites the website redesign and a search engine optimization effort.
AND THE WINNER IS: Depends. Month to month, week to week, the honors for top news website will vary among the top three: Yahoo News, CNN, and MSNBC. They all hover around 35 Million unique visitors a month, but CNN usually beats the other two by ten minutes or more in terms of time spent online. Its visitors average a half hour or more at a time. The other two are in the 20-minute-plus range. After the top three, the battle is between AOL and the New York Times, with the number of visitors a month dropping significantly to a little over 20 Million visitors a month. But both do average about half an hour in time spent. Rounding out the top ten in varying order, depending on the week or month, are Tribune group, Gannett, ABC News, Google News, Fox and some times USA Today. Interestingly (as I always say -- at least to me), Yahoo News averages three times as many visitors as Google News (an average of 30-plus Million unique visitors compared to Google’s 11 Million) and usually twice as much time spent by its visitors (an average of 20-plus minutes compared to Google’s 12 minutes.) Considering the previous article, I should note that NPR averages about 3.7 Million unique visitors to its site and they spend an average of six to seven minutes. Lastly, in further proof that I need to get a life, I averaged the amount of time spent online at these various websites. The average time spent was 9 minutes and 49 seconds while the median for time spent was 13 minutes and 30 seconds. I give that, because it gives you something to compare with the time spent on your website.
AND THE ONE TO WATCH IS: Actually there are ten to watch. Ten web startups that Technology Review says are worth watching. In keeping with websites nowadays, they all have some weird names, but not so weird potential. My two favorites help turn everyone into a reporter (not a journalist, just a reporter) on the scene. Qik lets you capture audio and video and stream it in real time to its website and from there to any other platforms. In essence you can broadcast live from your phone. Ushahidi is the Swahili word for “testimony” and is the name of an application developed during Kenya’s chaotic and deadly presidential election last December. It picks up text messages from any mobile phone and displays them on a Google Maps application to track trouble spots. The founder says it can be used in any crisis situation, such as the Katrina disaster, to track problems. A third website is a kind of traffic reporter. Dash Navigation is a two-way Internet-connected traffic network that employs traffic data but then also tracks users’ cars through GPS data to help deal with traffic jams. Others include Pinger which describes itself as “noninterruptive voice mail” – you record a voice message on the Pinger server and it sends out a text message to the recipient telling them they have a message to pick up. Pownce allows you to send and receive large multimedia files to specific people. As the review put it, think Twitter meets Napster. QTech is a sort of electronic post it note which generates reminders about everything from meetings to grocery lists via phone, text message, RSS feed, e-mail or Web interface. 33Across uses self-provided information and Web browsing to find out who are the “viral promoters” who influence the buying of products. Peer39 is a semantic-advertising company whose algorithms help customize advertising messages to a very detailed level based on blogs, social networks, forums and Web page use. Mashery, as its name implies, allows a sort of mash-up of Websites, letting them talk to each other using API’s (application programming interfaces). Anagran uses technology to prescreen data so that it can tell which packets are which (packets are those little bits that all Internet info is broken into); and then it prioritizes their sending.
MEDIA GORILLA FOLLOW-UP: It almost invariably happens. After I send out an MfM, I find new information or information I forgot to put in. In last week’s MfM about TV as the dominant medium, I left out the latest Nielsen numbers on TV viewing, which has hit an all-time high. Americans watch an average of 127 hours and 15 minutes of TV a month. That’s up from 121 hours and 48 minutes last year. Americans also spend 26 hours and 26 minutes a month in front of their computers. Two hours and 19 minutes of that time is spent watching online video.
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.
Message From Michael -- July 14, 2008
THE 600-POUND MEDIA GORILLA
VIDEO, VIDEO EVERYWHERE
THE TECHNOLOGICAL SHOTGUN WEDDING
DANGER, WILL ROBINSON
FACTOID OF THE WEEK – VIDEO SHELF LIFE
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
THE 600-POUND MEDIA GORILLA: Even without me saying it, you can probably guess what I’m talking about, and if you guessed the Internet, you’re wrong. Half a dozen recent reports that I’ve reviewed came out with the same conclusion – television is and will continue to be for some time the dominant media. First comes the PriceWaterhouseCoopers Global Entertainment and Media Outlook report which says that revenue from traditional media such as television will still dominate the global market. Then there’s the media services firm Magna Global whose director of industry analysis argues that TV’s “convenience, relatively low cost and quality of content” will sustain the traditional viewing and support from big brand advertisers for the foreseeable future. Interestingly The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising based in London (who else but the British would have such a weird name), used the same language as the Magna Global people, referring to television as “the dominant medium.” The Solutions Research Group predicts that TV viewing will stay pretty constant for some time, accounting for nearly half (47%) of the daily “video pie.” Add to that the report by The Media Audit which says adults spend an average 222 minutes a day (that’s 3 hours and 42 minutes) watching television, compared to 122 minutes a day using the Internet. Finally research conducted by The Nielsen Company for the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing which shows the vast majority of adults (94%) who subscribe to cable or satellite prefer to watch on the traditional TV sets.
Of course it’s never that simple. The Media Audit study notes that online usage has jumped 62% in the past year from an average of 2 hours and 2 minutes a day to 3 hours and 17 minutes a day. Television, which while still the larger amount, has actually dropped as a percent of the total media day from 36.5% in 2006 to 32.7% in 2007. The CTAM commissioned study by Nielsen noted similar numbers and percentages, while also noting that a third of broadband users surveyed (35%) said they had turned to the Internet to watch a television show originally shown on TV. The Solutions Research Group makes a similar point, noting that TV’s share has dropped while PC-based, web video and mobile video consumption has continued to rise; but the group says on-demand video and digital video recorders will mean TV will still retain a place in the market. The PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) report says the ballooning over-50 crowd in developed countries (aka America and Europe) is the main support for traditional media even while adopting some of the new media; but that in the developing countries it’s the ballooning under-35 crowd who are setting the stage for change in media consumption. Putting that into PWC-speak, media companies should continue to “extract revenue” from the traditional segments while the emerging technologies “solidify their consumer position.” Brian Weiser with Magna Global says part of the problem with ad spending on new media is that it is labor intensive, but that as ad buying becomes more standardized for these segments along with data crunching (aka measurement), spending will increase. The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising warns that increased advertising is driving some people away while the advent of the personal video recorders is helping keep them away.
Side Note #1: A study commissioned by Yahoo titled Engage and Entertain: The Impact of the Internet on your TV Show Brand” found that a third of TV viewers go on-line for details about a TV show BEFORE watching it while two-thirds (68%) of TV viewers say they go online to find about more information about a TV show AFTER watching it.
Side Note #2: The PriceWaterhouseCoopers report says the fastest growth in media will come in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) nations with the group forecasting the media business in those four countries at $250 Billion by 2012 compared to $165 Billion for Japan, $633 Billion for Western Europe and $760 Billion for the U-S which remains the largest but slowest growing market.
VIDEO, VIDEO EVERYWHERE: Several reports say we should get away from thinking about things like TV, DVD’s, DVR’s, Mobile, Film, Movies, Internet video and video games as separate issues but rather as part of a total video universe. The Solutions Research Group, cited above, predicts that by the year 2013, people will spend as much time consuming video as they do sleeping – roughly eight hours a day, up from six hours a day right now and 4.6 hours a day in 1996. The report says the “appetite for video is remarkable” and talks about “ambient video everywhere.” In a similar vein, the Forrester Research group issued a report titled somewhat hyperbolically How Video Will Take Over the World in which it talks about a concept it calls “omnivideo.” It predicts a video explosion with individuals able to watch – and produce – video nearly everywhere on a variety of different devices because, says principal analyst James McQuivey, “video satisfies the brain in a way that other media just cannot.”
THE TECHNOLOGICAL SHOTGUN WEDDING: It’s between TV and the PC, and several major groups are working to make sure it happens. Sony has created an Internet video link that plugs into the back of Bravia LCD TV’s and allows you to access sites as diverse as YouTube, AOL, CBS.com and Yahoo! Panasonic’s version is Vieracast on its Viera model TV sets and which accesses YouTube and the Weather Channel. Sharp has a configurable widget on its Aquos Net TV’s to update people on weather, NASDAQ, traffic and comic strips. Comcast is seeking patents, as reported by Cynopsis, for two devices – one that acts as a portable TV and video player and one that ports TV content to PC’s. Of course, Google is in the fray, with its announcement of a Google Media Server which conveys content from the PC to the TV AND even a move to distribute ORIGINAL TV content via AdSense. Finally, there is a device called the ZvBox which lets you watch high definition Internet video on any digital TV in your housing, simply by plugging one end into your Windows PC and the other into an ordinary cable TV wall socket.
DANGER, WILL ROBINSON: That catch phrase from the 1960’s TV series Lost In Space was the first thing that came to mind as I read the Technology Review’s special report on the future of the Web, quoting thirteen of the leading minds in the Internet world. Many of them warned that privacy will be lost in the interconnected world that is the Internet. Richard Stallman who developed the GNU/ Linux system and founded The Free Software Movement warns of the dangers of Big Brother while Mena Trott who cofounded Six Apart sees it as letting people put most of their day online. Jonathan Abrams who founded Socializr and Friendster offers the tongue-in-cheek (or at least I think it’s tongue-in-cheek) prediction that in ten years we will all have chips in our brain which will immediately process all information from others we meet as well as sharing it with others, overloading our brain and “causing frequent nosebleeds and occasional cerebral hemorrhage.” An interestingly different perspective comes from the three futurists who, not coincidentally, all come from the developing regions of India, Africa and the Middle East, with all three seeing the Web as empowering the people of their areas either financially, socially or politically. A good number of the predictors talked about the Internet becoming more mobile so people are not ‘tied’ to a computer at a desk. And, of course, no prediction about the Web would be complete without a statement from Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man credited with inventing the Web, who speaks about Linked Open Data. And in a line that only Sir Tim and a few others probably full understands, says, “a mashup sphere will feast on a wealth of Semantic Web data and herald the next wave of progress and creativity on the Web.”
FACTOID OF THE WEEK: According to website, TubeMogul, whose motto is “empowering online video,” the ‘shelf life’ of most video is about two weeks. The website which helps people upload video to multiple websites reports that a quarter (25%) of all views of a video take place in the first four days; half of the views (50%) take place in the first two weeks; three quarters in the first 44 days; and by day 81, nearly all of the viewing (95%) that will take place has taken place.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: Just one, but it’s a beauty. You’ve heard about clothes and fashion outlets opening businesses in the virtual worlds. Now, trend website Springwise reports that the flip side of that is people are taking the clothes worn by their avatars and having them made for real world use. Two websites, Stardoll and Spreadshirt, are already capitalizing on the trend, according to industry website, Virtual Worlds News. Yes, I know, I had the same reaction. There is actually an association or newsletter specifically for virtual worlds. In fact there is going to be a virtual worlds expo in Los Angeles in September. And I would note a previous MfM in which people were getting married in these virtual worlds, or at least their avatars were, even though some of them were married in real life.
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.
VIDEO, VIDEO EVERYWHERE
THE TECHNOLOGICAL SHOTGUN WEDDING
DANGER, WILL ROBINSON
FACTOID OF THE WEEK – VIDEO SHELF LIFE
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
THE 600-POUND MEDIA GORILLA: Even without me saying it, you can probably guess what I’m talking about, and if you guessed the Internet, you’re wrong. Half a dozen recent reports that I’ve reviewed came out with the same conclusion – television is and will continue to be for some time the dominant media. First comes the PriceWaterhouseCoopers Global Entertainment and Media Outlook report which says that revenue from traditional media such as television will still dominate the global market. Then there’s the media services firm Magna Global whose director of industry analysis argues that TV’s “convenience, relatively low cost and quality of content” will sustain the traditional viewing and support from big brand advertisers for the foreseeable future. Interestingly The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising based in London (who else but the British would have such a weird name), used the same language as the Magna Global people, referring to television as “the dominant medium.” The Solutions Research Group predicts that TV viewing will stay pretty constant for some time, accounting for nearly half (47%) of the daily “video pie.” Add to that the report by The Media Audit which says adults spend an average 222 minutes a day (that’s 3 hours and 42 minutes) watching television, compared to 122 minutes a day using the Internet. Finally research conducted by The Nielsen Company for the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing which shows the vast majority of adults (94%) who subscribe to cable or satellite prefer to watch on the traditional TV sets.
Of course it’s never that simple. The Media Audit study notes that online usage has jumped 62% in the past year from an average of 2 hours and 2 minutes a day to 3 hours and 17 minutes a day. Television, which while still the larger amount, has actually dropped as a percent of the total media day from 36.5% in 2006 to 32.7% in 2007. The CTAM commissioned study by Nielsen noted similar numbers and percentages, while also noting that a third of broadband users surveyed (35%) said they had turned to the Internet to watch a television show originally shown on TV. The Solutions Research Group makes a similar point, noting that TV’s share has dropped while PC-based, web video and mobile video consumption has continued to rise; but the group says on-demand video and digital video recorders will mean TV will still retain a place in the market. The PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) report says the ballooning over-50 crowd in developed countries (aka America and Europe) is the main support for traditional media even while adopting some of the new media; but that in the developing countries it’s the ballooning under-35 crowd who are setting the stage for change in media consumption. Putting that into PWC-speak, media companies should continue to “extract revenue” from the traditional segments while the emerging technologies “solidify their consumer position.” Brian Weiser with Magna Global says part of the problem with ad spending on new media is that it is labor intensive, but that as ad buying becomes more standardized for these segments along with data crunching (aka measurement), spending will increase. The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising warns that increased advertising is driving some people away while the advent of the personal video recorders is helping keep them away.
Side Note #1: A study commissioned by Yahoo titled Engage and Entertain: The Impact of the Internet on your TV Show Brand” found that a third of TV viewers go on-line for details about a TV show BEFORE watching it while two-thirds (68%) of TV viewers say they go online to find about more information about a TV show AFTER watching it.
Side Note #2: The PriceWaterhouseCoopers report says the fastest growth in media will come in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) nations with the group forecasting the media business in those four countries at $250 Billion by 2012 compared to $165 Billion for Japan, $633 Billion for Western Europe and $760 Billion for the U-S which remains the largest but slowest growing market.
VIDEO, VIDEO EVERYWHERE: Several reports say we should get away from thinking about things like TV, DVD’s, DVR’s, Mobile, Film, Movies, Internet video and video games as separate issues but rather as part of a total video universe. The Solutions Research Group, cited above, predicts that by the year 2013, people will spend as much time consuming video as they do sleeping – roughly eight hours a day, up from six hours a day right now and 4.6 hours a day in 1996. The report says the “appetite for video is remarkable” and talks about “ambient video everywhere.” In a similar vein, the Forrester Research group issued a report titled somewhat hyperbolically How Video Will Take Over the World in which it talks about a concept it calls “omnivideo.” It predicts a video explosion with individuals able to watch – and produce – video nearly everywhere on a variety of different devices because, says principal analyst James McQuivey, “video satisfies the brain in a way that other media just cannot.”
THE TECHNOLOGICAL SHOTGUN WEDDING: It’s between TV and the PC, and several major groups are working to make sure it happens. Sony has created an Internet video link that plugs into the back of Bravia LCD TV’s and allows you to access sites as diverse as YouTube, AOL, CBS.com and Yahoo! Panasonic’s version is Vieracast on its Viera model TV sets and which accesses YouTube and the Weather Channel. Sharp has a configurable widget on its Aquos Net TV’s to update people on weather, NASDAQ, traffic and comic strips. Comcast is seeking patents, as reported by Cynopsis, for two devices – one that acts as a portable TV and video player and one that ports TV content to PC’s. Of course, Google is in the fray, with its announcement of a Google Media Server which conveys content from the PC to the TV AND even a move to distribute ORIGINAL TV content via AdSense. Finally, there is a device called the ZvBox which lets you watch high definition Internet video on any digital TV in your housing, simply by plugging one end into your Windows PC and the other into an ordinary cable TV wall socket.
DANGER, WILL ROBINSON: That catch phrase from the 1960’s TV series Lost In Space was the first thing that came to mind as I read the Technology Review’s special report on the future of the Web, quoting thirteen of the leading minds in the Internet world. Many of them warned that privacy will be lost in the interconnected world that is the Internet. Richard Stallman who developed the GNU/ Linux system and founded The Free Software Movement warns of the dangers of Big Brother while Mena Trott who cofounded Six Apart sees it as letting people put most of their day online. Jonathan Abrams who founded Socializr and Friendster offers the tongue-in-cheek (or at least I think it’s tongue-in-cheek) prediction that in ten years we will all have chips in our brain which will immediately process all information from others we meet as well as sharing it with others, overloading our brain and “causing frequent nosebleeds and occasional cerebral hemorrhage.” An interestingly different perspective comes from the three futurists who, not coincidentally, all come from the developing regions of India, Africa and the Middle East, with all three seeing the Web as empowering the people of their areas either financially, socially or politically. A good number of the predictors talked about the Internet becoming more mobile so people are not ‘tied’ to a computer at a desk. And, of course, no prediction about the Web would be complete without a statement from Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the man credited with inventing the Web, who speaks about Linked Open Data. And in a line that only Sir Tim and a few others probably full understands, says, “a mashup sphere will feast on a wealth of Semantic Web data and herald the next wave of progress and creativity on the Web.”
FACTOID OF THE WEEK: According to website, TubeMogul, whose motto is “empowering online video,” the ‘shelf life’ of most video is about two weeks. The website which helps people upload video to multiple websites reports that a quarter (25%) of all views of a video take place in the first four days; half of the views (50%) take place in the first two weeks; three quarters in the first 44 days; and by day 81, nearly all of the viewing (95%) that will take place has taken place.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: Just one, but it’s a beauty. You’ve heard about clothes and fashion outlets opening businesses in the virtual worlds. Now, trend website Springwise reports that the flip side of that is people are taking the clothes worn by their avatars and having them made for real world use. Two websites, Stardoll and Spreadshirt, are already capitalizing on the trend, according to industry website, Virtual Worlds News. Yes, I know, I had the same reaction. There is actually an association or newsletter specifically for virtual worlds. In fact there is going to be a virtual worlds expo in Los Angeles in September. And I would note a previous MfM in which people were getting married in these virtual worlds, or at least their avatars were, even though some of them were married in real life.
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
