THE COCKTAIL CHATTER EDITION
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THE COCKTAIL CHATTER EDITION: Or, put another way, the catch-up edition. The last two editions of MfM focused on the President-elect and media and technology. That didn’t leave a lot of room for the various facts and factoids, bits and pieces, trivia and not-so-trivia that come across my desk every day. So, here in no particular order, is a plethora of cocktail chatter points for you to use at your next holiday party.
Conservative policy group, the Leadership Institute, based in Arlington, Virginia, is offering courses to teach would-be pundits exactly that – how to be pundits. For anywhere from $75 for a lecture to $1,500 for three-hour one-on-one sessions, the New York Times reports, the young American Idol-esque commentators learn how to give soundbites “you can expect to hear on Hannity later.” Nearly 600 people have signed up so far this year, up from 461 in 2005.
Okay, one last election related note – the two ‘hot’ items online for the Presidential transition sound like a dietary recommendation for the over-80 crowd – prunes and plums. PrunesOnline is described as a “must have” for Presidential appointees. Known as the “prune book,” the listing of presidential appointment positions has been around since 1988. In a very similar vein is “The Plum Book” which also identifies key presidential appointment positions.
You remember in Forrest Gump when Tom Hanks was somehow inserted into an old scene involving L.B.J.; or have you seen those commercials in which a modern day person is inserted into an old movie. Well, a company which creates speaking avatars, Oddcast, has created a site, mymoviemoment.com, where you can do the same thing. It’s a little late for Halloween, but Oddcast has struck a deal with Twentieth Century Fox and MGM to allow you integrate your submitted photos into clips from some old B-grade horror movies. They reportedly have cut a deal to do a similar promotion for a selection of holiday films.
At the end of the other end of the spectrum is something called rotoscoping. This time it’s the reverse, with live video images turned into comic book-like animations. As reported in Advertising Age, the CMO of Charles Schwab says she’s seen nothing like it, when it comes to viewer response. It refers to a technique of manually creating a matte for an element on a live-action plate, according to Wikipedia, so it may be composited over another background. In case you want to try it, there are a couple of websites providing software, including rotofactory.com and videomaker.com.
Okay, you’ve heard about behavioral targeting and contextual targeting and… maybe.. micro-targeting in which you can narrow the focus of your online ads. But now there’s ‘nano-targeting’ in which you can create a series of ads on Facebook that are targeted at specific individuals. Writer Sam Lessin shows how he did it in an article in Advertising Age. All he had to do was target an ad to “Wall Street Journal reporters who are 25, graduated from Harvard with a history degree and live in San Francisco.” The Facebook told him there were less than 20 people who fit that… and one of those 20 was his girlfriend.
The number one video of all time on YouTube is the Evolution of Dance, according to website ReadWriteWeb.com. Comedian Judson Laipply uploaded the video in April of 2006 and it has garnered 55.8 Million views and it has been ‘favorited’ 252,082 times, making it the most viewed and most favorited video of all time. I think I mentioned the video in a previous MfM but I didn’t know it was the #1 video. This is another of my – do yourself a favor and watch it – recs. As a side note, the website notes that seven of the top ten videos are music based and five of those are professional videos.
The U.S. Military has created its own video sharing site, after blocking YouTube, MySpace and even Twitter, because (and I am not making this up) “terrorists could theoretically use Twitter social networking in the U.S. as an operation tool.” The website is called TroopTube and was created by a Seattle-based video services company, Delve Networks. Troops can send videos to families at home and families can do the same. When I checked out the site, the most popular video (and I am not making this up either) was General David Petraeus’ message to the troops.
More than two-thirds (68%) of technology companies were slapped with a lawsuit last year, according to law firm Fulbright & Jaworski which annually surveys U.S. litigation trends. Nearly a third (30%) faced six or more law suits and nearly half (47%) reported spending over $1 Million a year on business disputes.
While nearly half of iPhone owners (43%) earn in excess of $100,000 a year, the fastest growth in iPhone buying is among those earning between $25,000 and $50,000 (48% growth) and $25,000 to $75,000 (46% growth). Senior analyst Jen Wu of comScore says the reason may be that these people are using the iPhone in lieu of multiple digital devices and services, “transforming the iPhone from a luxury item to a practical communication and entertainment tool.”
Silicon Valley company Better Place has announced a plan to develop an electric-car infrastructure for Australia, which will eventually eliminate the need for Australia to import any oil. Before you dismiss this completely, publication Technology Review notes that the company has already developed such an infrastructure for Israel and Denmark. The difference is those countries are small, and Australia is the same size as the U.S. The company says it plans to sell the cars the same way mobile-phone companies sell phones, with a subsidized low cost and a monthly plan.
From the New York Times business section, the world’s largest corporation is Exxon/Mobil, worth $375 Billion – more than General Electric, Bank of America and Google combined. Quoting a Bernstein Research analyst, the report also says Exxon has the highest per barrel profit ($17) of any oil company, including Chevron ($16), Shell ($14) and BP ($12).
The Society for New Communication Research has named Twitter founders Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams their Innovators of the year. The Visionary of the Year award went to Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, co-authors of blogging website Groundswell which claims to tell you “how people with social technologies are changing everything.” A side note, they must be changing things awfully slowly – when I visited the site, the latest posting was a week old.
Actor George Clooney has been named “distinguished journalist in residence” at American University’s School of Communication. He is hosting the Reel Journalism series, looking at how journalism is portrayed in the movies.
Quinnipiac University whose polling institute has garnered it national fame has now garnered national notoriety for attempting to curb the activities of student journalists running an independent, online newspaper. First the university imposed a gag order on administrators, coaches and athletes to keep them from talking to the online reporters. Then it threatened to ban the student chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. The university since backed off after several national groups and national media criticized the school.
Gossip website JuicyCampus.com is also gaining national notoriety, with its publication of detailed rumors about sex, drugs and college life with contributors naming people anonymously. The rapidly growing year-old site has such gossip about 500 campuses nationwide. It also has spawned hate groups on Facebook, is under investigation by two state’s attorney generals and been voted to be banned by several student governments. Founder Matt Ivester told a group of Georgetown University who complained that the site has caused some students to drop out of school and raised fears about their job prospects that “they’re going to have to start developing a sense of humor,” according to a recent article in the Washington Post.
A website claiming to be the blog of a senior adviser to Sen. John McCain has generated lots of juicy gossip about the campaign and politics in general. It turns out though it’s the work of two guys trying to create a buzz for a movie they want, but they managed to fool MSNBC, The Los Angeles Times, Mother Jones, and The New Republic. The fake author of the website was supposedly one Martin Eisenstadt, a fellow at the fake Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy. The two would-be film-makers say yes they want to make a movie but they also want to make the point that in the 24 hour news cycle there is a lot of shoddiness in the reporting. And although The New York Times and the Associated Press both say the main “victims” (please note, that’s in quotes) were bloggers, it was also a blogger who eventually tracked down the hoax.
China’s leading video site, Youku.com, has obtained licenses from Chinese producers to stream more than 1,000 TV series on its site. That converts to more than 40,000 episodes and 50,000 hours of content. But here’s the part I love, the site is partnering with website Sina.com to produce a Chinese-language version of Sofia’s Diary, a ‘confessional type’ web show that first appeared in Portugal in 2002, well before Lonelygirl15 hit it bit in the U.S. A look at the site, BTW, and you can see it is pretty slickly produced.
From the annual “Oh My Gosh” category of news, a thirty second spot on the SuperBowl has jumped from $2.7 Million for the Fox carried game last year to $3 Million for the NBC carried game this year.
A California-based company is offering single-serve wine called Volute that can be drunk anywhere, including no-glass zones like concerts, camping grounds and beaches. According to trend watching website, Springwise, the aluminum bottle is “eco-friendlier” than traditional glass bottles, according to the makers, because it can be recycled and is actually better than glass because it blocks UV rays.
Students at Rice University in Texas are trying to create a beer with the health advantages of red wine. The six undergrads say they are engineering a yeast that produces the antiaging chemical, resveratrol, found in red wine. The so-called “BioBeer” is an entrant in the International Genetic Engineering Machine competition held in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Student Taylor Stevenson says, “it’s not going to prevent you from getting a beer gut from drinking too much beer or from getting cirrhosis of the liver, but people are already drinking beer, so why not make it a little healthier.”
LASTLY: A study reported by website TV by the Numbers says happy people watch less TV—48 minutes a day less, to be exact. That’s the difference between very happy and very unhappy people, according to the study published by Springer Science and Business Media. The study also notes that very happy people had sex ten times more than unhappy people, but I digress. Sociology professor John Robinson at the University of Maryland says his analysis of General Social Survey data shows that, “TV may provide viewers with short-run pleasure, but at the expense of long-term malaise.” The professor adds the ironic note that, “what viewers seem to be saying is that while TV in general is a waste of time and not particularly enjoyable, the shows I saw tonight were pretty good.” I should also footnote this by saying that my hoax antenna went up when I saw the name of the author. Professor John Robinson is also the name of one of the characters in the old TV series, Lost In Space. But I double-checked and yes indeed there is a real version as well.
DISCLAIMER: This is a longer than usual MfM, and I still didn’t get all my CC tidbits in. In any case, have a happy Thanksgiving and may the consulting gods help you cook your Turkey so it’s not too dry.
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.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Message From Michael - November 17,2008
THE TECHNOLOGY PRESIDENT – ANOTHER SPECIAL REPORT
THE CRACKBERRY ADDICT
THE GREATEST DIGITAL GENERATION
THE NON-DIGITAL PART OF THE EQUATION
WI-FI ON STEROIDS
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 TECHNOLOGY PRESIDENT. No doubt by now you’ve heard the description; now it’s not just a matter of how he uses technology but how he lets, or helps, others use it. After seeing so many different references, I decided to do my own research and the result is this abbreviated special report.
THE CRACKBERRY ADDICT. That’s one of the descriptions of people who can’t seem to live without their PDA. Obama had a Blackberry strapped to his belt constantly during the campaign, although as the New York Times points out, as President he may have to give it up for security reasons. His campaign e-mail database of supporters numbers more than 3 Million, a database which may end up being relinquished to the Democratic National Committee. Of course his campaign had a barackobama.com website, but it was the social networking site, mybarackobama.com, which racked up the impressive numbers. There is an obamafortechnology.com website which further enlists technology on behalf of the president-elect as well as a barack20.com site which purports to show businesses how to use the 2.0 social media lessons from Obama’s campaign to “win friends and influence millions.” As readers of MfM will remember, the number of Obama followers and subscribers on MySpace, YouTube, and Twitter far outnumbered Sen. John McCain. Just for laughs, btw, I checked Obama on LinkedIn and found that we’re only two degrees apart. How, I don’t know. Then there is the president-elect’s website, change.gov, which is focused on the transition process even though there is an ‘official’ transition site titled presidentialtransition.gov, which has such useful information as a “survivor’s guide” in case you’re asked to be part of the new government. (No, I’m not kidding.) The change website has specifics about his agenda, including technology, and that’s where it gets particularly interesting.
THE GREATEST DIGITAL GENERATION: The agenda technology page starts off with a call to “let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age.” Although the ‘change’ website drops the campaign rhetoric which noted that American students finished behind 16 developing countries in math and science scores and 20 developed countries, the site says we need to prepare our children for the 21st Century by making math and science a national priority – by recruiting math and science graduates to the teaching profession and improving science and math education in K-12.
MORE SPECIFICALLY, for those in the media business, the Obama-Biden ticket comes out as a strong supporter of net neutrality, and an equally strong supporter for “encouraging diversity in media ownership.” In previous campaign statements, the campaign has criticized the FCC for promoting “consolidation over diversity.” The ‘change’ website also says the Obama administration will push for “true broadband” in every community by reforming the Universal Service Fund (which telecommunications companies contribute to, through an assessment fee) and better use of the wireless spectrum. In previous campaign statements, the campaign criticized the FCC for defining broadband “as an astonishingly low 200 Kbps” which the campaign says distorted federal policy and hamstrung efforts to broaden access. They also call for Public Media 2.0, or in more cutesy language – the sesame street of the digital age – the next generation of public broadcasting.
LESS SPECIFICALLY, but still interesting, the technology agenda emphasizes the need to protect the First Amendment while protecting children online. Again, while the website does not have details, previous statements refer to such groups as Common Sense Media which promotes “sanity not censorship.” Also, on the technology agenda, is a call for strengthening privacy protections in the digital age, holding government and businesses accountable for violations of privacy; and a call to create a ‘transparent and connected democracy’ – opening up government to its citizens through technology. In previous campaign statements, the Obama campaign criticized the Bush Administration “as one of the most secretive, closed administrations in American history.”
THE NON-DIGITAL PART OF THE EQUATION. It’s easy for us in the media to think of technology in terms of telecommunications, IT and new media, but the technology agenda also includes a reform of the patent process, to “protect legitimate rights while not stifling innovation and collaboration”; restoring scientific integrity to the White House, so that decisions are based on “the best-available, scientifically-valid evidence and not on ideological predispositions”; investing in climate-friendly energy development and deployment; advancing biomedical research; and advancing stem cell research.
FINALLY, as most have heard, the president-elect plans to appoint a Chief Technology Officer, although as CNet.com points out, the question is whether the position will be symbolic or one with actual power. And although some people talk about Google CEO Eric Schmidt as the choice, others point to LaunchBoxDigital founder and technology transition team member Julius Genachowski as a more likely choice. More pragmatically the president-elect has to name a new Federal Communications Commission chairman, and as TVWeek points out, the inauguration takes place January 20th, just 29 days before the February 17th digital switchover.
If you want to read more about the technology agenda of the Obama-Biden administration than this very abbreviated report provides, you can go to two websites: http://www.change.gov/agenda/technology_agenda OR http://www.docstoc.com/docs/201649/Barack-Obamas-technology-policy .
WI-FI ON STEROIDS. One of the other things that seems to have dominated the e-mails and newsletters I receive is the “discovery” of Wi-Max technology. So, again, a little research was in order. Like so many other ‘discoveries,’ it turns out that Wi-Max has been around for much longer than you would expect. First off, the headline. Wi-Fi is the wireless connection to digital content that allows you to sit at Starbucks, have a cup of overly-expensive coffee and surf the Internet. Technically it transmits, usually at 2.4 Ghz, and only has a range of 120 feet to 300 feet. Wi-Max also operates in the 2 to 11 Ghz range, up to 66 Ghz, and theoretically can transmit a whopping 70 Mbps up to 30 miles. It’s for that reason that many television stations are looking at Wi-Max as an alternative to microwave live shots. The reality is that the further the distance the higher the bit rate error. Okay, I know, this is way too much 4-1-1 on technology. I’m sorry, but one last note. The other technology you hear about is 3G Technology, which stands for Third Generation of mobile phone technology. Reference site Wikipedia says that 3G provides “a wider range of more advanced services while achieving greater network capacity through improved spectral efficiency” giving you download speeds of 14.4 Mbps. Remember, Wi-Max can theoretically provide up to 70 Mbps.
Anyway, enough of the technical. This stuff is way above my pay grade. What I found interesting that this technology of the future has been around for nearly a decade. This probably tells you something – according to Wikipedia, the country of Pakistan has the largest fully functional network in the world. Iraq’s national telecom operator is launching that nation’s first Wi-Max Network. When the tsunami of December, 2004, practically destroyed all infrastructures in Indonesia, it was Wi-Max that provided the infrastructure connections. One of the reasons we in the States may have not heard so much about Wi-Max is that we have one of the lowest deployments of Wi-Max in the world – at 14 for North America, behind Asia and the Pacific at 26, Latin America at 22, Africa at 21, Europe at 21, Eastern Europe at 18 but ahead of the Middle East at 4, according to website telegeography.com. There are numerous websites about the technology, from wimax.com, to wimax360.com and wimaxforum.org. Bottomline: as this much more powerful technology becomes implemented in everything from iphones to computers and mp3 players, you will want to know about it, and now you do.
COCKTAIL CHATTER. Online classifieds website Craigslist has announced a deal in which it will crack down on advertising by prostitutes, sex massage and ‘boudoir’ photo services offered under its erotic listings. Anti-smoking groups are protesting a move by Phillip Morris USA to sell cigarettes in its Virginia Slim line of products in pink-colored, specially designed packs, designed to appeal to young women. Environmental activist group Greenpeace has produced a digitally altered advertisement showing President John F. Kennedy supposedly making a speech about global warming. The Federal Trade Commission has launched a website aimed at children, explaining things like target marketing. If you just said, ‘you’re kidding me,’ I agree, after looking at the site. Japan has one of the highest percentages (40%) of online population visiting music entertainment sites and the highest percentage of iTunes users of any country, according to comScore.
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.
THE CRACKBERRY ADDICT
THE GREATEST DIGITAL GENERATION
THE NON-DIGITAL PART OF THE EQUATION
WI-FI ON STEROIDS
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 TECHNOLOGY PRESIDENT. No doubt by now you’ve heard the description; now it’s not just a matter of how he uses technology but how he lets, or helps, others use it. After seeing so many different references, I decided to do my own research and the result is this abbreviated special report.
THE CRACKBERRY ADDICT. That’s one of the descriptions of people who can’t seem to live without their PDA. Obama had a Blackberry strapped to his belt constantly during the campaign, although as the New York Times points out, as President he may have to give it up for security reasons. His campaign e-mail database of supporters numbers more than 3 Million, a database which may end up being relinquished to the Democratic National Committee. Of course his campaign had a barackobama.com website, but it was the social networking site, mybarackobama.com, which racked up the impressive numbers. There is an obamafortechnology.com website which further enlists technology on behalf of the president-elect as well as a barack20.com site which purports to show businesses how to use the 2.0 social media lessons from Obama’s campaign to “win friends and influence millions.” As readers of MfM will remember, the number of Obama followers and subscribers on MySpace, YouTube, and Twitter far outnumbered Sen. John McCain. Just for laughs, btw, I checked Obama on LinkedIn and found that we’re only two degrees apart. How, I don’t know. Then there is the president-elect’s website, change.gov, which is focused on the transition process even though there is an ‘official’ transition site titled presidentialtransition.gov, which has such useful information as a “survivor’s guide” in case you’re asked to be part of the new government. (No, I’m not kidding.) The change website has specifics about his agenda, including technology, and that’s where it gets particularly interesting.
THE GREATEST DIGITAL GENERATION: The agenda technology page starts off with a call to “let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age.” Although the ‘change’ website drops the campaign rhetoric which noted that American students finished behind 16 developing countries in math and science scores and 20 developed countries, the site says we need to prepare our children for the 21st Century by making math and science a national priority – by recruiting math and science graduates to the teaching profession and improving science and math education in K-12.
MORE SPECIFICALLY, for those in the media business, the Obama-Biden ticket comes out as a strong supporter of net neutrality, and an equally strong supporter for “encouraging diversity in media ownership.” In previous campaign statements, the campaign has criticized the FCC for promoting “consolidation over diversity.” The ‘change’ website also says the Obama administration will push for “true broadband” in every community by reforming the Universal Service Fund (which telecommunications companies contribute to, through an assessment fee) and better use of the wireless spectrum. In previous campaign statements, the campaign criticized the FCC for defining broadband “as an astonishingly low 200 Kbps” which the campaign says distorted federal policy and hamstrung efforts to broaden access. They also call for Public Media 2.0, or in more cutesy language – the sesame street of the digital age – the next generation of public broadcasting.
LESS SPECIFICALLY, but still interesting, the technology agenda emphasizes the need to protect the First Amendment while protecting children online. Again, while the website does not have details, previous statements refer to such groups as Common Sense Media which promotes “sanity not censorship.” Also, on the technology agenda, is a call for strengthening privacy protections in the digital age, holding government and businesses accountable for violations of privacy; and a call to create a ‘transparent and connected democracy’ – opening up government to its citizens through technology. In previous campaign statements, the Obama campaign criticized the Bush Administration “as one of the most secretive, closed administrations in American history.”
THE NON-DIGITAL PART OF THE EQUATION. It’s easy for us in the media to think of technology in terms of telecommunications, IT and new media, but the technology agenda also includes a reform of the patent process, to “protect legitimate rights while not stifling innovation and collaboration”; restoring scientific integrity to the White House, so that decisions are based on “the best-available, scientifically-valid evidence and not on ideological predispositions”; investing in climate-friendly energy development and deployment; advancing biomedical research; and advancing stem cell research.
FINALLY, as most have heard, the president-elect plans to appoint a Chief Technology Officer, although as CNet.com points out, the question is whether the position will be symbolic or one with actual power. And although some people talk about Google CEO Eric Schmidt as the choice, others point to LaunchBoxDigital founder and technology transition team member Julius Genachowski as a more likely choice. More pragmatically the president-elect has to name a new Federal Communications Commission chairman, and as TVWeek points out, the inauguration takes place January 20th, just 29 days before the February 17th digital switchover.
If you want to read more about the technology agenda of the Obama-Biden administration than this very abbreviated report provides, you can go to two websites: http://www.change.gov/agenda/technology_agenda OR http://www.docstoc.com/docs/201649/Barack-Obamas-technology-policy .
WI-FI ON STEROIDS. One of the other things that seems to have dominated the e-mails and newsletters I receive is the “discovery” of Wi-Max technology. So, again, a little research was in order. Like so many other ‘discoveries,’ it turns out that Wi-Max has been around for much longer than you would expect. First off, the headline. Wi-Fi is the wireless connection to digital content that allows you to sit at Starbucks, have a cup of overly-expensive coffee and surf the Internet. Technically it transmits, usually at 2.4 Ghz, and only has a range of 120 feet to 300 feet. Wi-Max also operates in the 2 to 11 Ghz range, up to 66 Ghz, and theoretically can transmit a whopping 70 Mbps up to 30 miles. It’s for that reason that many television stations are looking at Wi-Max as an alternative to microwave live shots. The reality is that the further the distance the higher the bit rate error. Okay, I know, this is way too much 4-1-1 on technology. I’m sorry, but one last note. The other technology you hear about is 3G Technology, which stands for Third Generation of mobile phone technology. Reference site Wikipedia says that 3G provides “a wider range of more advanced services while achieving greater network capacity through improved spectral efficiency” giving you download speeds of 14.4 Mbps. Remember, Wi-Max can theoretically provide up to 70 Mbps.
Anyway, enough of the technical. This stuff is way above my pay grade. What I found interesting that this technology of the future has been around for nearly a decade. This probably tells you something – according to Wikipedia, the country of Pakistan has the largest fully functional network in the world. Iraq’s national telecom operator is launching that nation’s first Wi-Max Network. When the tsunami of December, 2004, practically destroyed all infrastructures in Indonesia, it was Wi-Max that provided the infrastructure connections. One of the reasons we in the States may have not heard so much about Wi-Max is that we have one of the lowest deployments of Wi-Max in the world – at 14 for North America, behind Asia and the Pacific at 26, Latin America at 22, Africa at 21, Europe at 21, Eastern Europe at 18 but ahead of the Middle East at 4, according to website telegeography.com. There are numerous websites about the technology, from wimax.com, to wimax360.com and wimaxforum.org. Bottomline: as this much more powerful technology becomes implemented in everything from iphones to computers and mp3 players, you will want to know about it, and now you do.
COCKTAIL CHATTER. Online classifieds website Craigslist has announced a deal in which it will crack down on advertising by prostitutes, sex massage and ‘boudoir’ photo services offered under its erotic listings. Anti-smoking groups are protesting a move by Phillip Morris USA to sell cigarettes in its Virginia Slim line of products in pink-colored, specially designed packs, designed to appeal to young women. Environmental activist group Greenpeace has produced a digitally altered advertisement showing President John F. Kennedy supposedly making a speech about global warming. The Federal Trade Commission has launched a website aimed at children, explaining things like target marketing. If you just said, ‘you’re kidding me,’ I agree, after looking at the site. Japan has one of the highest percentages (40%) of online population visiting music entertainment sites and the highest percentage of iTunes users of any country, according to comScore.
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.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Message From Michael - November 10, 2008
THE THREE SCREEN ELECTION – A SPECIAL REPORT
THE POLITICAL INTERNET TRAFFIC JAM
THE ELECTION NEWS VICTOR
THE ELECTION NEWS FUTURE
AN MFM FOLLOW-UP AND TOO IMPORTANT NOT TO NOTE
PAID ADVERTISEMENT – NEWS DIRECTOR
COCKTAIL CHATTER – ONLINE MURDER
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 THREE SCREEN ELECTION. In this special edition of Message from Michael, we’re going to sum up some of the new media and mainstream media numbers from the campaign. I know you’ve already heard about this being the year of the Internet when it comes to politics, but this is really more of what I would call the three screen election, because the out-reach and the two-way conversation between the public and the politicians did reach across the TV screen, the computer screen and the hand-held screen.
THE POLITICAL INTERNET TRAFFIC JAM. The election of Sen. Barack Obama scored the highest per minute net usage worldwide of any news event since Internet backbone firm Akamai began monitoring such usage three years ago. Nearly 8.6 Million people hit the Internet every minute starting at 11 p.m. election night. The next highest event was the elimination of the U.S. in the World Cup finals by Ghana in June of 2006 (7.2 Million). Sporting events took nine of the top 15 net usage events. Even the next day’s post-election usage scored high (# 7 in ranking) at 4,885,406 users per minute – just barely ahead of the 8th highest event – the death of Anna Nicole Smith (4,885,065). The post election day resignation of Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on November 8th, 2006, came in 15th. And just in case you’re curious – the other non-sporting events that generated heavy traffic, besides Anna Nicole Smith’s death, were Cory Lidle’s plane crashing into the New York apartment building on October 11, 2006 and the deadline shootings at Virginia Tech on October 17, 2007.
Former Howard Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi who helped start the Internet political machine says the Internet in 2008 allowed both campaigns to create the “greatest get-out-the-vote campaign in U.S. History.” Although both candidates used the Internet, Obama’s campaign is credited with meshing the social networking aspects of the Internet better. For example, according to senior analyst Jeremiah Owyang at Forrester Research, Obama had four times as many YouTube subscribers as Sen. John McCain, four times as many Facebook subscribers, four times as many MySpace subscribers and 240 times more followers on Twitter (112,474 followers compared to McCain’s 4,603). It’s also probably indicative of the youth support that the number of Facebook subscribers for Obama (2,379,102) is nearly three times the number of his MySpace subscribers (833,161). And in the same vein, and not surprisingly, in a survey by micro-blogging site Twitter, Obama out-polled McCain six to one. Interestingly, at least to me, people are still twittering on the election.twitter.com site, and for all four candidates.
And although Obama also dominated the online video (the “yes, we can” video had 10 Million views), according to website UTubeblog, it was Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin who really scored. Her first interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson scored as many viewers online as it did on TV while the Tina Fey portrayal of her actually scored more viewing on-line than it did on TV. Indicative of the Obama campaign’s multi-platform out-reach, they even placed ads in video games like Nascar 09, NHL 09, NFL Tour and Need for Speed. Not to be out-done, the McCain campaign established a campaign headquarters on the Linden Lab’s virtual world Second Life where people could hang out at the – Straight Talk Café.
THE ELECTION NEWS VICTOR. Before the pundits officially declare this the Internet election, a note of reality – three quarters of the public (72%) still cite TV as their primary source for election news, according to the Pew Research Center for People and the Press. That number is more than double the number who cite the Internet (33%). BUT – and it’s a big BUT – the percentage citing the Internet either first or second in terms of campaign news has tripled from the last presidential election when only one in ten (10%) cited the Internet. The Internet has also officially over-taken newspapers as the campaign news source. In 2004, one in four (28%) cited newspapers – a number that stayed basically flat in this presidential election year (29%), while, as I noted, the Internet has climbed past newspapers with 33%. And before television people gloat, the percentage citing TV is down four points election to election (76% to 72%). Not surprisingly, the Pew study shows younger Americans cite the Internet in much greater numbers with nearly half (49%) calling it as a main source of election. That’s three times newspapers in that group (17%) and not nearly as far behind television (61%). Even less surprising, the study says the audiences for major cable news networks are highly partisan while the audiences for network TV and the Internet are more in line with the general public.
THE ELECTION NEWS FUTURE. According to an article in MediaWeek by reporter Mike Shields, the intense interest in this election may signal a shift of people becoming “online-news junkies” for good. As support for that, he notes that MSNBC.com has added more than 13 Million unique users, pushing its site to 43.2 Million total users. Citing figures from Nielsen Online, Yahoo News is up 5.7 Million uniques to 38 Million while CNN is up 6.4 Million users to 37 Million. Left-leaning political website HuffingtonPost.com saw its user base jump 457% to 7.5 Million uniques. Shields talked to several of the website chiefs who admit that while many of the newcomers are “light users” who come aboard only during special events, but they expect their numbers to still stay high. The trick is to use some of the strategies developed in the election coverage for their non-political news stories.
AN MFM FOLLOW-UP. The Federal Communications Commission has approved the use of the so-called white spaces in the broadcast spectrum (mentioned in a previous MfM headlined “Knights in White Spaces”), despite the opposition of broadcast groups. The commission also approved Verizon’s acquisition of Alltell, making it the largest wireless carrier in the U.S., and SprintNextel was given the go-ahead to buy Clearwire. That last part all sounds like just so much business news, but the significance of this is that it clears the way for the creation of Wi-Max, a substantially more robust wireless transmission system. We’ll talk about that more in a future MfM. In a previous MfM, headlined, “Hey, You, Get On To My Cloud,” we talked about the cloud computing future. Microsoft has unveiled a new Windows program called Azure which it says is a cloud computing system for the Internet, allowing developers to build applications on line in real time using existing Windows languages. Okay, you know the real reason I did this follow-up. I just had to use those headlines again.
PAID ADVERTISEMENT – NEWS DIRECTOR. Hey, cool, my first paid advertisement on the MfM newsletter… except I had to pay for it myself. Oh, well. Anyway, here it is: WNEG-TV, the television station recently acquired by the University of Georgia, is looking for a news director. The station is one of only three university-owned commercial television operations in the country. We’re looking for someone who understands the realities of small market television (and all that implies) but also understands the vision that comes with a university-owned operation (and all that implies). Our core product is news, delivered primarily by television but eventually through multiple delivery systems. The small professional staff is supplemented by university students, but will eventually include trained citizen media and user generated content. The position will initially be based in Toccoa, Georgia, but moved to Athens within a year. An unusual opportunity and challenge for the right person. Contact Michael Castengera at mcasteng@uga.edu.
TOO IMPORTANT NOT TO NOTE: Both of these items have gotten a lot of press, but I still have to mention them. Maybe we’ll talk about them more later. The Christian Science Monitor has announced that it will stop printing a weekday paper version of the century-old newspaper in April and only publish online. The paper’s editor, John Yemma, says the newspaper has the “luxury and opportunity” to do something every newspaper will have to do in five years time. And CNN has announced that it is launching a wire service in direct competition to the Associated Press and is courting major newspapers. The A.P. has been under fire recently for a rate change, with several major newspapers dropping the service.
COCKTAIL CHATTER. According to attorney Michael C. Dorf at Findlaw.com, when Barack Obama was born in 1961, twenty-one American states still banned inter-racial marriages. A little perspective on the online video phenomenon: the head of MySpace’s TV content and marketing area says two-thirds of the videos viewed are on viewer profiles. In other words, friends telling friends about stuff they’ve put on their space. One of the princesses of those online videos is Justine Ezarik who may not be someone you want to know but someone you should know about. She may be the latest online phenomenon. Her video about ordering a cheeseburger has garnered 600,000 views while her video complaining about her iPhone bill has generated 1,336,000 views (let me put that in words – more than one million, three hundred and thirty six thousand views). And, finally, a person you probably don’t want to know –a 43-year-old Japanese piano teacher has been arrested for murdering her online husband. Let me be clear. This is her avatar husband, her virtual husband in the virtual world Maple Story, NOT a ‘real’ husband. Let me also be clear. She wasn’t arrested for murder. She was actually arrested for illegally accessing a computer. But the fact remains that she became so upset with her 33-year-old office worker avatar husband that she… well, killed him after what The Times of London called “an abrupt but messy online divorce.”
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.
THE POLITICAL INTERNET TRAFFIC JAM
THE ELECTION NEWS VICTOR
THE ELECTION NEWS FUTURE
AN MFM FOLLOW-UP AND TOO IMPORTANT NOT TO NOTE
PAID ADVERTISEMENT – NEWS DIRECTOR
COCKTAIL CHATTER – ONLINE MURDER
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 THREE SCREEN ELECTION. In this special edition of Message from Michael, we’re going to sum up some of the new media and mainstream media numbers from the campaign. I know you’ve already heard about this being the year of the Internet when it comes to politics, but this is really more of what I would call the three screen election, because the out-reach and the two-way conversation between the public and the politicians did reach across the TV screen, the computer screen and the hand-held screen.
THE POLITICAL INTERNET TRAFFIC JAM. The election of Sen. Barack Obama scored the highest per minute net usage worldwide of any news event since Internet backbone firm Akamai began monitoring such usage three years ago. Nearly 8.6 Million people hit the Internet every minute starting at 11 p.m. election night. The next highest event was the elimination of the U.S. in the World Cup finals by Ghana in June of 2006 (7.2 Million). Sporting events took nine of the top 15 net usage events. Even the next day’s post-election usage scored high (# 7 in ranking) at 4,885,406 users per minute – just barely ahead of the 8th highest event – the death of Anna Nicole Smith (4,885,065). The post election day resignation of Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on November 8th, 2006, came in 15th. And just in case you’re curious – the other non-sporting events that generated heavy traffic, besides Anna Nicole Smith’s death, were Cory Lidle’s plane crashing into the New York apartment building on October 11, 2006 and the deadline shootings at Virginia Tech on October 17, 2007.
Former Howard Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi who helped start the Internet political machine says the Internet in 2008 allowed both campaigns to create the “greatest get-out-the-vote campaign in U.S. History.” Although both candidates used the Internet, Obama’s campaign is credited with meshing the social networking aspects of the Internet better. For example, according to senior analyst Jeremiah Owyang at Forrester Research, Obama had four times as many YouTube subscribers as Sen. John McCain, four times as many Facebook subscribers, four times as many MySpace subscribers and 240 times more followers on Twitter (112,474 followers compared to McCain’s 4,603). It’s also probably indicative of the youth support that the number of Facebook subscribers for Obama (2,379,102) is nearly three times the number of his MySpace subscribers (833,161). And in the same vein, and not surprisingly, in a survey by micro-blogging site Twitter, Obama out-polled McCain six to one. Interestingly, at least to me, people are still twittering on the election.twitter.com site, and for all four candidates.
And although Obama also dominated the online video (the “yes, we can” video had 10 Million views), according to website UTubeblog, it was Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin who really scored. Her first interview with ABC’s Charlie Gibson scored as many viewers online as it did on TV while the Tina Fey portrayal of her actually scored more viewing on-line than it did on TV. Indicative of the Obama campaign’s multi-platform out-reach, they even placed ads in video games like Nascar 09, NHL 09, NFL Tour and Need for Speed. Not to be out-done, the McCain campaign established a campaign headquarters on the Linden Lab’s virtual world Second Life where people could hang out at the – Straight Talk Café.
THE ELECTION NEWS VICTOR. Before the pundits officially declare this the Internet election, a note of reality – three quarters of the public (72%) still cite TV as their primary source for election news, according to the Pew Research Center for People and the Press. That number is more than double the number who cite the Internet (33%). BUT – and it’s a big BUT – the percentage citing the Internet either first or second in terms of campaign news has tripled from the last presidential election when only one in ten (10%) cited the Internet. The Internet has also officially over-taken newspapers as the campaign news source. In 2004, one in four (28%) cited newspapers – a number that stayed basically flat in this presidential election year (29%), while, as I noted, the Internet has climbed past newspapers with 33%. And before television people gloat, the percentage citing TV is down four points election to election (76% to 72%). Not surprisingly, the Pew study shows younger Americans cite the Internet in much greater numbers with nearly half (49%) calling it as a main source of election. That’s three times newspapers in that group (17%) and not nearly as far behind television (61%). Even less surprising, the study says the audiences for major cable news networks are highly partisan while the audiences for network TV and the Internet are more in line with the general public.
THE ELECTION NEWS FUTURE. According to an article in MediaWeek by reporter Mike Shields, the intense interest in this election may signal a shift of people becoming “online-news junkies” for good. As support for that, he notes that MSNBC.com has added more than 13 Million unique users, pushing its site to 43.2 Million total users. Citing figures from Nielsen Online, Yahoo News is up 5.7 Million uniques to 38 Million while CNN is up 6.4 Million users to 37 Million. Left-leaning political website HuffingtonPost.com saw its user base jump 457% to 7.5 Million uniques. Shields talked to several of the website chiefs who admit that while many of the newcomers are “light users” who come aboard only during special events, but they expect their numbers to still stay high. The trick is to use some of the strategies developed in the election coverage for their non-political news stories.
AN MFM FOLLOW-UP. The Federal Communications Commission has approved the use of the so-called white spaces in the broadcast spectrum (mentioned in a previous MfM headlined “Knights in White Spaces”), despite the opposition of broadcast groups. The commission also approved Verizon’s acquisition of Alltell, making it the largest wireless carrier in the U.S., and SprintNextel was given the go-ahead to buy Clearwire. That last part all sounds like just so much business news, but the significance of this is that it clears the way for the creation of Wi-Max, a substantially more robust wireless transmission system. We’ll talk about that more in a future MfM. In a previous MfM, headlined, “Hey, You, Get On To My Cloud,” we talked about the cloud computing future. Microsoft has unveiled a new Windows program called Azure which it says is a cloud computing system for the Internet, allowing developers to build applications on line in real time using existing Windows languages. Okay, you know the real reason I did this follow-up. I just had to use those headlines again.
PAID ADVERTISEMENT – NEWS DIRECTOR. Hey, cool, my first paid advertisement on the MfM newsletter… except I had to pay for it myself. Oh, well. Anyway, here it is: WNEG-TV, the television station recently acquired by the University of Georgia, is looking for a news director. The station is one of only three university-owned commercial television operations in the country. We’re looking for someone who understands the realities of small market television (and all that implies) but also understands the vision that comes with a university-owned operation (and all that implies). Our core product is news, delivered primarily by television but eventually through multiple delivery systems. The small professional staff is supplemented by university students, but will eventually include trained citizen media and user generated content. The position will initially be based in Toccoa, Georgia, but moved to Athens within a year. An unusual opportunity and challenge for the right person. Contact Michael Castengera at mcasteng@uga.edu.
TOO IMPORTANT NOT TO NOTE: Both of these items have gotten a lot of press, but I still have to mention them. Maybe we’ll talk about them more later. The Christian Science Monitor has announced that it will stop printing a weekday paper version of the century-old newspaper in April and only publish online. The paper’s editor, John Yemma, says the newspaper has the “luxury and opportunity” to do something every newspaper will have to do in five years time. And CNN has announced that it is launching a wire service in direct competition to the Associated Press and is courting major newspapers. The A.P. has been under fire recently for a rate change, with several major newspapers dropping the service.
COCKTAIL CHATTER. According to attorney Michael C. Dorf at Findlaw.com, when Barack Obama was born in 1961, twenty-one American states still banned inter-racial marriages. A little perspective on the online video phenomenon: the head of MySpace’s TV content and marketing area says two-thirds of the videos viewed are on viewer profiles. In other words, friends telling friends about stuff they’ve put on their space. One of the princesses of those online videos is Justine Ezarik who may not be someone you want to know but someone you should know about. She may be the latest online phenomenon. Her video about ordering a cheeseburger has garnered 600,000 views while her video complaining about her iPhone bill has generated 1,336,000 views (let me put that in words – more than one million, three hundred and thirty six thousand views). And, finally, a person you probably don’t want to know –a 43-year-old Japanese piano teacher has been arrested for murdering her online husband. Let me be clear. This is her avatar husband, her virtual husband in the virtual world Maple Story, NOT a ‘real’ husband. Let me also be clear. She wasn’t arrested for murder. She was actually arrested for illegally accessing a computer. But the fact remains that she became so upset with her 33-year-old office worker avatar husband that she… well, killed him after what The Times of London called “an abrupt but messy online divorce.”
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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