OVERVIEW: It was the year of micro-blogging site Twitter and an attack on Mumbai, India’s financial center, in which ‘twitterers’ did much of the reporting; the rise of social networking and the rise of America’s first African-American president through the use of social networking; a surge in the use of online video and along with it a surge in video providers like Hulu. And before this gets too esoteric for all of you, a little back to planet earth moment – Yahoo’s number one search item in 2008 was the same one as a year ago in 2007 – BRITNEY SPEARS. As website TechCrunch put it, maybe it’s a train wreck kind of thing. The number two most searched item was…. WWE, and for those not familiar – that’s World Wrestling Entertainment, which, BTW, was also #2 in 2007. Barack Obama came in third. Anyway, on to this slightly longer than usual review in which we give you a snapshot of 2008.
MAN IS A SOCIAL ANIMAL: Philosopher Aristotle would have found proof of that in 2008 as social networks metastasized around the world. The poster child of social networking is the not-even-two-years-old (March, 2006) micro-blogging site Twitter which, as Technology Review put it, has “spawned an ecosystem of competitors, knock-offs, plug-ins and add-ons.” Of course the giants are Facebook and MySpace with more than 100 Million unique users each month, but there are plenty of would-be giant killers out there as well. How about badoo and bebo, which both claim a worldwide focus; fark (talking about news that isn’t news) and newsvine (talking about news that people are talking about); iambored (which, well… you can guess); gather (for the NPR crowd) and habbo (for the teenagers). As fast as the Internet audience is growing (11% a year, according to comScore), social networking sites are growing even faster (25%) with some lesser known sites (hi5, Mixx and Yelp) growing faster still, according to web analysis site ignitesocialmedia.com.
And I’ve just been talking about the English sites so far. According to Google’s end of year Zeitgeist report which looks at the fastest growing search items in the U.S., and world, three of the top ten search items were Tuenti (a Spanish social networking site), Nasza Klasa (a Polish site) and Wer Kennt Wen (a German site). That may explain that while social networking site growth in the U.S. is a modest 9%, it is nearly triple that worldwide, at 25%. Here’s the fact that says a lot -- Of the nearly 861 Million Internet cited by comScore, two thirds (581 Million) are on social networking sites. There is even a website, ning.com, where you can create your own social network. Founders Gina Bianchini and Marc Andreesen were named to Fast Company’s list of the 12 most creative minds of 2008.
As a FOOTNOTE to all this, let me apologize to the numerous people who’ve invited me to join Plaxo, Pulse, Pownce and other social networking sites. I’m already on half a dozen and I can’t keep up with them.
MAN IS A POLITICAL ANIMAL: So says our good buddy Aristotle. In fact that was the original translation, until someone decided that politikos in Greek more closely translated to social in English than political. Anyway, I digress. In its end of the year review of searches, Yahoo! said it was “politics as unusual” that dominated much of the year’s search with political debates replacing the ‘rubbernecking at the scene of celebrity train wrecks” as a prime activity. (Isn’t it interesting that the train wreck analogy was used again?) Right up there with the celebrity searches were searches for Barack Obama, and most particularly, Sara Palin who made #4 on Ask.com’s list of ‘top celebrity baby mamas of 2008’, just behind Angelina Jolie, Jessica Alba and Jamie Lynn Spears. Also on the political search hit list was the Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s favorite word, ‘maverick’ which topped the Dictionary.com list of top gainers, just ahead of socialism. The word also made Google’s list of campaign ‘buzzwords’ just behind Joe the Plumber and Jeremiah Wright. As a side note, the Google list of top sources for political news included SNL… as in Saturday Night Live, for what Google called its “up-to-the-minute spoofs of the campaign.”
As a FOOTNOTE, you may recall that the Pew Research Center survey showed that the Internet had emerged this year as the leading source for political and campaign news this year. In its latest report just released, the folks at Pew say the Internet has now officially taken the lead over newspapers as the main source of national and international news with two out of five (40%) saying they get most of such news from the Internet compared to a third (35%) who cite newspapers. Television is still the dominant source of such news at 70%, but in the under-30 crowd it’s a dead heat (59% to 59%).
And as a Footnote to the Footnote, the Pew report shows that three of the top 15 news stories followed “very closely” were political stories, the same number as natural disasters (Hurricanes Ike and Gustav and flooding in the Midwest), but way behind the eight stories about the economy which dominated the top 15 selections. And dominated not just by numbers but by percentages with 70% saying they followed the U.S. economy stories ‘very closely.’
ONLINE VIDEO: No cute headline here. Just one basic fact from a previous MfM, quoting a New York Times article. YouTube alone consumed as much bandwidth last year as ALL providers did in the year 2000. And from another one – founder Chad Hurley says that YouTube receives more than ten hours of video every minute on its site. And the latest figures I saw, show YouTube averaging just over 5.3 Billion video streams a month. Add to that the Hulu’s, Yahoo’s, Joost’s, Veoh’s, Blinkxx’s, Flickr’s and so on and so on… and you get the picture. As a side note, Nielsen’s Three Screen Report makes the point that the average user spends 142 hours and 29 minutes watching TV in the home compared to two hours and 31 minutes watching video on the Internet BUT while there were 282 Million people watching TV in the home, there was a substantial 120 Million people watching video on the Internet. And as a side note to the side note, I should reference TVWeek’s Daisey Whitney’s ‘experiment’ in which she relied solely on the Internet for her video needs and, in the words of Maxwell Smart, loved every minute of it.
I WANT PLAYERS WHO ARE AGILE, MOBILE AND HOSTILE. Famed Alabama coach Bear Bryant said that about his players and now media mavens are saying that may apply to mobile video. Here is the interesting factoid from the Nielsen Three Screen report. Mobile subscribers with video capability actually spent more time watching video on their mobile devices than people spent watching video online – 3 hours and 37 minutes on a mobile phone versus 2 hours and 31 minutes watching video on the Internet. Again, that applies only to mobile subscribers, but it’s still interesting. Much of that mobile interactivity can be attributed to the growth of the iPhone and its various knock-off and copy cat versions, according to those same media mavens. But, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, anyone expecting 2008, or 2009 for that matter, to be the “year of the mobile” is mistaken. Another “but” – But by the year 2020, according to its survey of Internet experts, “the combination of portability and relative affordability will turn the cell phone into the leading Internet gateway.” The report, Future of the Internet III, says there will be about 4 Billion cell phones worldwide by the end of 2008, with up to 15% of them ‘Internet enabled.’ The report’s best quote comes from Susan Crawford, founder of OneWebDay, who says they will no longer be ‘cell phones’ but “simply lenses on the online world.”
I WANT MY STV: Replace the M with S, for sports, and you have a better picture of the most popular one-time telecasts in 2008. In fact you could make the letter an F – for Football. Five of the top ten telecasts were the Superbowl (43% of the audience) and post bowl coverage, along with the NFC playoff and championship and the AFC divisional playoff game. Four others were the Olympics which hovered around 18%. The one ringer? Can you guess? The Academy Awards (18.7).
More interesting for what it tells you is Nielsen’s list of the top ten “timeshifted” primetime TV programs. Topping the list was NBC favorite Heroes which gained an extra 35% in viewership when the 7-day viewing was added to the live ratings. It was followed by Fringe (26%), Lost (25%), Bones (21%), Grey’s Anatomy (20%), House (18%), Survivor: Gabon (18%), American Idol – Tuesday (13%), The Mentalist (13%) and American Idol – Wednesday (12%). Even more interesting (as I always say, at least to me) only four of the programs made Nielsen’s top ten for regularly scheduled programs: both American Idols (with a 15.5 and 15.3 rating), The Mentalist with a 10 rating and Survivor with a 7.6 rating, based on Live and ‘same day timeshifted’ viewing.
As a Footnote, American viewing of television increased yet again in 2008, another four minutes per household to 8 hours and 18 minutes a day, says Nielsen.
YOU ARE WHAT YOU READ: At least some people seem to believe that and if it’s true the theme for 2008 is that we are all looking for a greater purpose in life. That seems to be the message looking at the top seller list of non-fiction books from Nielsen. Self-described spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle claims two of the top spots with his books A New Earth and The Power of Now, which promise to help awaken you to your life’s purpose through “transcending our ego-based state of consciousness.” Now, admittedly President-elect Barack Obama also scored two books on the non-fiction list, but when you look at the other books, there is a clear theme. The book The Secret which we’ve mentioned in previous MfM’s promises to transform your weakness and suffering into strength and health using ‘secrets’ discovered by sages and seers. The book Three Cups of Tea looks at one man’s journey to “promote peace with books, not bombs” building schools in Afghanistan. And, of course, Randy Pausch’s book The Last Lecture (also mentioned in a previous MfM) is an inspirational look at life and living by the professor who died of cancer at an early age.
Just for the record, none of the best selling books made either of the lists of best books of 2008 compiled by Time Magazine and The New York Times. But then again, only three books made both lists. In the non-fiction category, The Forever War looking at “the gaping wounds of Iraq and Afghanistan” by reporter Dexter Filkins was recommended by both sets of editors. In the fiction category, the book 2666 by Robert Bolano who died in 2003 made both lists along with Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lapiri. Her book traces the life of Bengali families finding their way in America while Bolano’s book which tells the story of the killings of hundreds of women in a seedy Mexican town is described as “baffling, maddening, difficult, violent, obscene, over-indulgent, way too long” and the best book of 2008.
GADGETS, GIZMOS AND GAMES: Inspector Gadget would have loved 2008. Okay, as much as I thought the solar panel that fit on the top of the Prius Hybrid was way cool, this is a newsletter about media things. So, forget the solar panel and the electric powered motorcycle and the meticulously engineered Embody chair. Instead, let’s talk about Fast Company’s recommendations for the Panasonic P2 HD camera (which, BTW, the Grady College has bought), the ASUS EEE 9c1000 miniature netbook, the Sony XEL incredibly flat screen TV, the FLIP Mino mini-camera that is Facebook friendly, and the Lenovo Ideapad S10 computer. Or, instead, we could look at Wired.com’s counter gadgetry, which is similar but different. For example, instead of the solar panel for the Toyota Prius Hybrid, Wired likes the Honda Insight Hybrid. Or, to get a little fancier, instead of the Canon DSLR, the folks at Wired like Nikon D90. Instead of the Flip, Wired folks like the Kodak Z16 mini-cam. Instead of the Asus, the wired editors (doesn’t that sound like an oxymoron?) like the MSI Wind. BUT… BUT… if you really want to be cool in the gadget world, you need to get yourself a Chumby which does streaming video along with streaming music along with weather and news, all in a Wi-Fi connection that sits on your bedside table. (Side note -- This is the one I was going to buy for my son-in-law for Christmas but couldn’t find.)
Despite all the hoopla about Guitar Hero, the number one mobile game is the old standby Tetris with nearly double the share of revenue (7% vs. 3.6%), according to Nielsen. The rarely mentioned Bejeweled puzzle game is #2 (at 4%) ahead of GH. In fact most of the so-called mobile games are old standbys – Wheel of Fortune, PAC-MAN, The Oregon Trail, Ms. PAC-MAN and Tetris Mania. The popular TV show, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader, also made it to the top ten list as a game. Now, here’s the kicker. The #1 PC Game title in the U.S. is World of Warcraft with slightly more than 7% of the total audience. No great surprise there, BUT the average player spends 671 minutes a week playing the game. That’s more than 11 hours a week. The next highest in terms of minutes played is Runescape (451 minutes – 7 ½ hours). What may be a predictor of the future, Runescape also scored as the number five top search item in the Yahoo top ten search list for 2008. As a side note, the Japanese manga (comic or cartoon) Naruto came in at #7 on the search list. And as a footnote to all this, a study by Deloitte titled State of the Media Democracy found that video games, once frowned upon by parents, are becoming ‘family time.’
THINGS THEY MISSED: Oddly I didn’t see as much as I would have expected in all the 2008 reviews about Widgets or Cloud Computing. As a personal aside, these are major developments (IMHO – In My Humble Opinion) that seeded this year and will blossom next. A development that may have come a little late to make the year in review articles possibly, but which I have to note: the announcement by the Christian Science Monitor that it will switch from print to a purely online edition coupled with the announcement by the Detroit newspapers that they are cutting their print versions to three days a week and replacing it with a digital version. But more on all that in next week’s edition of MFM in which we will look at the predictions and prognostications for 2009.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, December 01, 2008
Message From Michael - December 1, 2008
WHEN LIFE-CASTING BECOMES DEATH-CASTING
FEAR RULES THE NEWSROOM
LIVING IN SPAMALOT
LICENSE TO BE A RICH IDIOT
DO IT YOURSELF IDIOCY
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.
WHEN LIFE-CASTING BECOMES DEATH-CASTING: A 19-year-old Florida college student committed suicide online while upwards of 15-hundred people watched, some reacting in horror, some ‘egging’ him on, according to a variety of media reports. Abraham Briggs Jr., who went by the name Candyjunkie on the website Bodybuilding.com and Feels Like Ecstacy on Justin.TV, had threatened suicide in the past. He took a drug over-dose and left a suicide note which was a combination of two other suicide notes from other posts. When it became apparent he was not moving, a viewer from India urged the forum moderators to do something but was initially dismissed, and then contacted other viewers living in the States. Other viewers watching reacted with either OMG (Oh My God) or LOL (Laugh Out Loud). The video of the cops breaking into his room, along with his actual suicide note are still available online. The CEO of Justin.TV issued a statement that, “we regret that this has happened and respect the privacy of the broadcaster and his family during this time.” Police in the young man’s home town of Pembroke Pines are investigating the role of the website which calls itself a “life-casting” site.
The suicide is not the first on line. A British electrical engineer hanged himself on line last year. British newspapers report at least 17 deaths in Britain since 2001 involving chatrooms that give advice on committing suicide. There have been several ‘cybersuicide’ pacts formed, most notably in Japan where more than 140 deaths have been attributed to this phenomenon since 2004. A memorial site has been established on MySpace.com by friends of the young man. If you go to the Justin.tv website and enter suicide as a search item, you will find a series of videos, mostly animes, but including one in which a young man televises his call to a suicide hotline. If you go to MySpace.com and enter suicide as a search item, you’ll get nearly 3 Million returns, including Bludgeoned to Death by Suicide Silence and a suicide prevention website. Funeral services for Briggs were held this past Saturday.
As a footnote, I know this story has been reported fairly widely, but frankly it was too important not to report it again, with hopefully a few more details for you.
FEAR RULES THE NEWSROOM. So says former CBS anchorman Dan Rather in one of the many vignettes created for the IFC Media Project. It’s the fear of being beaten on a news story, the fear of loss of ratings, and the fear for one’s job. His brief interview is one of many examining the role of the media, along with a cartoon character called the “news junkie” who gives his spin on the media. The project offers a handbook on “decoding the media” with an in-depth look at terms, resources and milestones but also a somewhat asinine media quiz, loaded with pretty obvious, expected responses to prove that you’re ‘media savvy.’ But still an interesting site. Meanwhile, in a similar vein, The New York Times recently profiled a series of web-based, independent news sites doing investigative reporting. The article points out that these sites have arisen in several cities as newspapers and television stations have cut back on staff. Some of those cited include voiceofsandiego.com, MinnPost in the Twin Cites and St. Louis Beacon. Other sites without a specific geographic focus include ProPublica, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and the three-decades-old Center for Investigative Reporting. All well worth a visit.
LIVING IN SPAMALOT. It seems we all do. According to a report by the BBC, spammers are turning a profit, even though they’re only getting one response for every 12.5 Million emails they send. Quoting a study by the University of California, Berkeley, the report says spammers churn out so many messages that they are still able to turn over “millions of pounds in profit every year.” The study investigators infiltrated a spam network called Storm and found that it had One Million machines under its control. The researchers sent about 469 million junk email messages, got a response of only 0.00001%, but still this came out to $100 a day – not the vast sums some people think but when the numbers are scaled higher, the profits increase as well. On a related note, China led the way but closely followed by the U.S. as the leading source of “attack traffic” on the Internet. Of the 179 countries involved, the two accounted for nearly half (45%) of all the attack traffic worldwide, according to the quarterly report State of the Internet by Akamai.
LICENSE TO BE A RICH IDIOT. A Statesville, North Carolina, man has just won $5,000 plus a trip for two to New York City for coming up with a new catch phrase (fan-taste-ic) and setting it to music for an ad for Crest toothpaste. But that’s nothing compared to Joel Moss Levinson, a college dropout whose declared major was medieval weaponry and who has won more than $200,000 creating “digital ditties” – home-made advertisements. His consumer generated pieces have generated a viral buzz for everything from Klondike ice cream bars to Little Penguin wine, to Delta Air Lines and even an Israeli advocacy group. Levinson who admits to having held, and lost, more than 40 jobs is quoted in The New York Times as saying, “it’s great to have a license to be an idiot.” Levinson is also one of the 1,773 entrants in what is becoming an annual event for chip-maker Doritos, looking for the ‘best’ consumer generated advertising spot to run during the SuperBowl. The winner gets $1 Million. Sorry, entries have closed, but you can see the entries at website crashthesuperbowl.com. You can enter the $25,000 contest by Truth North snacks which is looking for an inspirational life story which will be played during the Oscars in February of next year.
The point of all this is a claim by Current.TV founder Joel Hyatt that his video and TV site has landed multiple million-dollar deals based on non-professional commercials created by fans. He says surveys (un-named) show that viewers prefer consumer generated ads 9-to-1 over the Madison Avenue creations, according to website ReadWriteWeb.com. Meanwhile a senior executive with advertising giant Ogilvy says that while user generated content can be difficult to ‘monetize’ because of its edgy nature, it can be done. Gina de Mendonca told Beet.TV that UGC video mash ups and contests are especially appealing. But all is not wine and roses in the consumer generated world. AOL has announced it’s dropping its consumer generated content site, uncutvideo, on December 18th and turning over operations to Motionbox.com. I should also note previous MfM reports in which consumer generated reviews and comments, on websites and in blogs, did prove to be critical to users’ decision making. On a semi-related note, eMarketer reports that two thirds (67%) of the U.S. Internet population – 145 Million people – will be reading blogs at least monthly by 2012, and that one out of every six (16%) of the people on the Internet will actually have a blog.
DO IT YOURSELF IDIOCY. In a semi-related vein, several Internet websites have popped up, that promise to show you how to do virtually anything. The granddaddy site is learn2.com which focuses on how to get the most out of your Microsoft Office and Windows software, but others are decidedly more interesting and often risqué. Website Instructables.com recently announced its winning entries which included scavenging free electronics and food while helping the environment, renewing old children’s toys and how to convert an old cell phone (Nokia 6600 to be exact) into a “super gadget microcomputer.” Website Howcast.com shows you how to do simple magic tricks, to how play iPod videos on your TV, to how to break out of prison. Website WonderHowTo.com shows you how to curse in several languages, change the PCV valve in your car and how to turn old underpants into a bra. Website Tricklife.com shows you how to get over autumn depression, how to tie a surgeon’s knife and how to be a Ninja. Website 5Min.com shows you how to pick the perfect Christmas tree, how to prevent acne and what parents should know about giving their kids a debit card. Website VideoJug.com shows you how to play the Ukulele, how many fish you should have in your aquarium and how to give the ‘perfect hug.’ I am offering this all up this week as an alternative to my weekly Cocktail Chatter (since last week’s Message was all CC), but I warn you that these sites, while having many useful tips, can also be addictive time-eaters.
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.
FEAR RULES THE NEWSROOM
LIVING IN SPAMALOT
LICENSE TO BE A RICH IDIOT
DO IT YOURSELF IDIOCY
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.
WHEN LIFE-CASTING BECOMES DEATH-CASTING: A 19-year-old Florida college student committed suicide online while upwards of 15-hundred people watched, some reacting in horror, some ‘egging’ him on, according to a variety of media reports. Abraham Briggs Jr., who went by the name Candyjunkie on the website Bodybuilding.com and Feels Like Ecstacy on Justin.TV, had threatened suicide in the past. He took a drug over-dose and left a suicide note which was a combination of two other suicide notes from other posts. When it became apparent he was not moving, a viewer from India urged the forum moderators to do something but was initially dismissed, and then contacted other viewers living in the States. Other viewers watching reacted with either OMG (Oh My God) or LOL (Laugh Out Loud). The video of the cops breaking into his room, along with his actual suicide note are still available online. The CEO of Justin.TV issued a statement that, “we regret that this has happened and respect the privacy of the broadcaster and his family during this time.” Police in the young man’s home town of Pembroke Pines are investigating the role of the website which calls itself a “life-casting” site.
The suicide is not the first on line. A British electrical engineer hanged himself on line last year. British newspapers report at least 17 deaths in Britain since 2001 involving chatrooms that give advice on committing suicide. There have been several ‘cybersuicide’ pacts formed, most notably in Japan where more than 140 deaths have been attributed to this phenomenon since 2004. A memorial site has been established on MySpace.com by friends of the young man. If you go to the Justin.tv website and enter suicide as a search item, you will find a series of videos, mostly animes, but including one in which a young man televises his call to a suicide hotline. If you go to MySpace.com and enter suicide as a search item, you’ll get nearly 3 Million returns, including Bludgeoned to Death by Suicide Silence and a suicide prevention website. Funeral services for Briggs were held this past Saturday.
As a footnote, I know this story has been reported fairly widely, but frankly it was too important not to report it again, with hopefully a few more details for you.
FEAR RULES THE NEWSROOM. So says former CBS anchorman Dan Rather in one of the many vignettes created for the IFC Media Project. It’s the fear of being beaten on a news story, the fear of loss of ratings, and the fear for one’s job. His brief interview is one of many examining the role of the media, along with a cartoon character called the “news junkie” who gives his spin on the media. The project offers a handbook on “decoding the media” with an in-depth look at terms, resources and milestones but also a somewhat asinine media quiz, loaded with pretty obvious, expected responses to prove that you’re ‘media savvy.’ But still an interesting site. Meanwhile, in a similar vein, The New York Times recently profiled a series of web-based, independent news sites doing investigative reporting. The article points out that these sites have arisen in several cities as newspapers and television stations have cut back on staff. Some of those cited include voiceofsandiego.com, MinnPost in the Twin Cites and St. Louis Beacon. Other sites without a specific geographic focus include ProPublica, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and the three-decades-old Center for Investigative Reporting. All well worth a visit.
LIVING IN SPAMALOT. It seems we all do. According to a report by the BBC, spammers are turning a profit, even though they’re only getting one response for every 12.5 Million emails they send. Quoting a study by the University of California, Berkeley, the report says spammers churn out so many messages that they are still able to turn over “millions of pounds in profit every year.” The study investigators infiltrated a spam network called Storm and found that it had One Million machines under its control. The researchers sent about 469 million junk email messages, got a response of only 0.00001%, but still this came out to $100 a day – not the vast sums some people think but when the numbers are scaled higher, the profits increase as well. On a related note, China led the way but closely followed by the U.S. as the leading source of “attack traffic” on the Internet. Of the 179 countries involved, the two accounted for nearly half (45%) of all the attack traffic worldwide, according to the quarterly report State of the Internet by Akamai.
LICENSE TO BE A RICH IDIOT. A Statesville, North Carolina, man has just won $5,000 plus a trip for two to New York City for coming up with a new catch phrase (fan-taste-ic) and setting it to music for an ad for Crest toothpaste. But that’s nothing compared to Joel Moss Levinson, a college dropout whose declared major was medieval weaponry and who has won more than $200,000 creating “digital ditties” – home-made advertisements. His consumer generated pieces have generated a viral buzz for everything from Klondike ice cream bars to Little Penguin wine, to Delta Air Lines and even an Israeli advocacy group. Levinson who admits to having held, and lost, more than 40 jobs is quoted in The New York Times as saying, “it’s great to have a license to be an idiot.” Levinson is also one of the 1,773 entrants in what is becoming an annual event for chip-maker Doritos, looking for the ‘best’ consumer generated advertising spot to run during the SuperBowl. The winner gets $1 Million. Sorry, entries have closed, but you can see the entries at website crashthesuperbowl.com. You can enter the $25,000 contest by Truth North snacks which is looking for an inspirational life story which will be played during the Oscars in February of next year.
The point of all this is a claim by Current.TV founder Joel Hyatt that his video and TV site has landed multiple million-dollar deals based on non-professional commercials created by fans. He says surveys (un-named) show that viewers prefer consumer generated ads 9-to-1 over the Madison Avenue creations, according to website ReadWriteWeb.com. Meanwhile a senior executive with advertising giant Ogilvy says that while user generated content can be difficult to ‘monetize’ because of its edgy nature, it can be done. Gina de Mendonca told Beet.TV that UGC video mash ups and contests are especially appealing. But all is not wine and roses in the consumer generated world. AOL has announced it’s dropping its consumer generated content site, uncutvideo, on December 18th and turning over operations to Motionbox.com. I should also note previous MfM reports in which consumer generated reviews and comments, on websites and in blogs, did prove to be critical to users’ decision making. On a semi-related note, eMarketer reports that two thirds (67%) of the U.S. Internet population – 145 Million people – will be reading blogs at least monthly by 2012, and that one out of every six (16%) of the people on the Internet will actually have a blog.
DO IT YOURSELF IDIOCY. In a semi-related vein, several Internet websites have popped up, that promise to show you how to do virtually anything. The granddaddy site is learn2.com which focuses on how to get the most out of your Microsoft Office and Windows software, but others are decidedly more interesting and often risqué. Website Instructables.com recently announced its winning entries which included scavenging free electronics and food while helping the environment, renewing old children’s toys and how to convert an old cell phone (Nokia 6600 to be exact) into a “super gadget microcomputer.” Website Howcast.com shows you how to do simple magic tricks, to how play iPod videos on your TV, to how to break out of prison. Website WonderHowTo.com shows you how to curse in several languages, change the PCV valve in your car and how to turn old underpants into a bra. Website Tricklife.com shows you how to get over autumn depression, how to tie a surgeon’s knife and how to be a Ninja. Website 5Min.com shows you how to pick the perfect Christmas tree, how to prevent acne and what parents should know about giving their kids a debit card. Website VideoJug.com shows you how to play the Ukulele, how many fish you should have in your aquarium and how to give the ‘perfect hug.’ I am offering this all up this week as an alternative to my weekly Cocktail Chatter (since last week’s Message was all CC), but I warn you that these sites, while having many useful tips, can also be addictive time-eaters.
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.
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