Message from Michael - Feb 23, 2009

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        February 23, 2009                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

      THE MUPPETS AND ZOMBIES VERSUS BARACK OBAMA

      THE CELL PHONE AS FIRST COMPUTER

      THE FACEBOOK FACE-OFF

      CLARIFICATIONS AND CONGRATULATIONS

 

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      THE MUPPETS AND ZOMBIES VERSUS BARACK OBAMA:  So, faced with those words in a headline or tease, which story do you pick?  Well, the Pew Research group has provided an answer of sorts with a new twist on the old news debate about what people want to know versus what they should know.  Their New Media Index tracks the top stories on the blogosphere and social media; then you can compare that with the top stories on its News Coverage Index which tracks the mainstream media.  For example, in the latest survey covering the period from February 8^th to the 15th, the economic crisis and/or the stimulus bill dominated both media streams.  After that though, the main stream media devoted its “newshole,” as the Pew people inelegantly refer to it, to President Obama, the New York plane crash, Israel and the Australian fires.  In contrast the stories rounding out the top five in terms of linkage in new media were eye care, Catholic indulgences, the Muppets and satellite radio.  BUT – and you can see, it’s a big BUT – even those stories all originated in the traditional media forum.  The eye care story was a New York Times article about how people could save money on eye glasses and eye care.  The Catholic indulgences story also came courtesy of the New York Times and was about a practice that allows for the mitigation of punishment for sins.  The Muppets story came from Mental Floss magazine through CNN.com and chronicled the history of the 20 characters on the show.  And story number five about Sirius radio also originated in the so-called mainstream media and actually was covered there, just not as much as the bloggers and social media-ites.  Just to add another twist, the folks at Pew also list the top viewed news and political videos on YouTube.  In this particular week it was footage of a college student excited to ask President Obama a question, Obama’s video message about his stimulus plan, a firefighter giving water to a Koala bear in the fires in Australia, footage of a man in Essex barely missing being hit by a train, and the message from the Polish engineer being held hostage by the Taliban.

In the previous week, the mainstream media and new media both focused on the stimulus bill and economic crisis (with 44% of the news hole and 39% of the links), and the Obama administration (with 17% of the news hole and 24% of the links).  But after that, the mainstream media focused on the Super Bowl, events in Iraq and Afghanistan while the top stories in the new media survey (which is based, BTW, on data provided by Technorati and IceRocket) were the snow in England (linked to several BBC reports), the practice of renditions (revolving around a Los Angeles Times report about the controversial practice used in investigating alleged terrorists), and a questionable method used by Johns Hopkins Medical Center to remove a donor’s kidney.  In the YouTube world, it was all about actor Ashton Kucher complaining about his neighbor’s construction, the two New Zealand prisoners handcuffed together who run into a light pole when they try to escape, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi struggling to explain how a program to prevent sexually transmitted diseases will stimulate the economy, Representative Dick Army telling Salon editor Joan Walsh how happy he is that she is not his wife AND – surprise of surprises – an hour long forum on Middle East Peace held at the Davos World Economic Forum.

One last one, in the week previous (January 26^th  to February 1^st), the second most popular story, rivaling the economic crisis and the Obama administration was a story originating on Foxnews.com about hackers in Texas who broke into the system for programming digital road signs and changed one in Austin to read:  Zombies ahead.  Literally that story got almost as many links as the economic crisis and more than the Obama administration.  In that same week, a study showing that high-fructose corn syrup could contain mercury got as many links as the problems surrounding Gitmo.  In what seems to be a pattern to the two reports, two out of the five top stories are similar but the other three are totally different.  In this week’s case, the mainstream media was reporting on Blago, the Super Bowl and the ice storms.  There is a message in all this, but I will leave it to MfM readers to figure out what that message it.   

      THE CELL PHONE AS FIRST COMPUTER:  That’s the way Craig Mundie of Microsoft characterized the mobile units to the future of digital/ mobile panel at the Davos World Economic Forum.  And like the person who buys a boat and wants a bigger boat or who buys golf clubs and then wants more clubs, Mundie says Microsoft’s three-screen strategy is based on the idea that people buying the cell phones will eventually want something bigger and better.  That may explain why the focus on mobile units at the forum.  That, and the fact that while there are One Billion people online, as T-Mobile International’s CEO Hamid Akhavan explained to the group, there are more than three times that number (3.3 Billion) of cell phone users worldwide -- half of the world’s population.

If you believe that also translates into a mobile video world, think again.  Microsoft’s Mundie was probably the bluntest when asked whether we’ve reached an online video tipping point – “the idea that we’re going to turn off cable and turn off satellite delivery and get on-line delivery is not in the cards – in my opinion – technically any time soon.”  TMobile’s Akhavan noted that less than five percent of the cell phones being sold are 100% browser ready.  While YouTube’s Chad Hurley noted that mobile video use is growing faster than the general Internet and new media growth, the percentage of people uploading video via mobile units is only two to three percent.  On the flip side though, he said he believes the market for online video is reaching critical mass with audiences similar in size to what you can reach on television.  What particularly helps the monetization of online video is that it is measurable.  He argues the smart advertisers will move “from a world that isn’t measurable to an audience of the same size for a fraction of the cost.”  (Let me emphasize the difference in these statements – online broadband-delivered video versus online mobile-delivered video.)

A couple of final points about the Davos forum.  First off, I admit it’s a little old, but there has been little reporting of the panel activities in my view.  Despite the big names on the panel, less than 8,000 people actually watched the hour-long webcast on YouTube – including, of course, yours truly – so you don’t have to.  The movers and shakers at Davos have formed their own exclusive social network – WELCOM – to discuss global issues after the conference ends. And you’re not welcome to join.  As BusinessWeek put it, it’s kind of a Facebook for the rich, powerful and famous.  And finally, one of the key discussions by the panel was about privacy.  Here, Microsoft’s Mundie probably put it best, saying it all boiled down to TRUST.  (Please, no comments about the irony of that statement coming from a Microsoft person.)  He says there are two elements to that trust:  Notice, as in, let people know what information is being collected; and Choice, as in, let people decide how that information is to be distributed.

      THE FACEBOOK FACE-OFF.  The phenomenal growth of Facebook over the last year seems to pit the once student-focused social network against every other social network out there.  As was pointed out at the Davos panel, slightly better than one out of every ten Internet users in the world is signed on to Facebook.  Last year Facebook passed MySpace as the most trafficked social networking site in the world.  It went from 52 Million in June of 2007 to 132 Million in June of 2008 while Myspace grew from 114 Million to 117 Million.  You know how I love factoids.  According to a blog by Mark Zuckerberg (who also attended the Davos panel) with more than 150 Million users worldwide at the beginning of this year, “if Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia and Nigeria.”  In his talk to the panel, Zuckerberg said, “the mission of the company is to make the world more open.”  Before you dismiss that as P-R pabulum, I should note that the fastest growing application on Facebook is “Causes” which, as the name implies, links people to causes and benefits.  With 22.6 Million users, it is the fifth largest developer, behind RockYou (39 Million), Slide (38.6 Million), Zynga (32.3 Million) and Playfish (26.4 Million).

Facebook grew at double digit rates (38%) in North America; triple digit rates in Asia (458%), Africa (403%) and Europe (303%); but quadruple rates in South America (1055%).  Of course, part of that is because Facebook was already mature in the U.S. and is only a recent introduction in other parts of the world.  Interestingly enough, Facebook and MySpace are both flops in Japan where the top social networking site is Mixi and a social networking site originally created by Toyota (gazoo.com).  According to Facebook web tracking site, AllFacebook.com, while Facebook numbers hover around 47 Million in the U.S., Japan had only 233 Thousand users while massive China had 240 Thousand and India had 1.1 Million.  The country with the highest market penetration by Facebook, or put another way, the highest Facebook population density is…drum roll, please… Iceland with just under half of the country (41.31%) subscribing.  It’s followed by Canada (32.81%), Denmark (32.79%), Norway (30.59%), Chile (28.37) and the United Kingdom with one out of four Internet residents (24.45%) a Facebook subscriber.  The U.S. came in 17^th at 13.97%, but looked at another way, that’s still one out of every seven Internet residents.  As a PS, if you want to entertain yourself or drive yourself crazy, the allfacebook.com website as well as InsideFacebook.com provide enormous amounts of stats and stories to keep you going for hours on end.    

      CLARIFICATION:  In last week’s MfM, we noted the amount of BitTorrent streaming videos in various countries around the world.  It was part of a larger look at online videos and piracy.  But as MfM subscriber and Intelligent Media Consultants partner Todd Fantz rightfully pointed out, the BitTorrent video streams are not all illegal.   

      CONGRATULATIONS:   To MfM subscriber and University of North Texas professor Alan Albarran for being named the Broadcast Education Association’s 2009 recipient of the Distinguished Scholar Award.  Dr. Albarran who heads UNT’s Center for Spanish Language Media won the Journal of Media Economics Award of Honor last year.  The BEA award will be presented the award at the BEA convention in Las Vegas in April.  

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Message from Michael - February 16, 2009

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        February 16, 2009                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

      RE-SETTING THE DIGITAL CLOCK

      MEASURE ME THIS, MEDIAMAN

      PIRACY OFF THE HIGH SEAS

      TRIVIAL COMMUNICATION AS AN ART FORM

      COCKTAIL CHATTER: DARWIN AND THE DEVIL

 

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      RE-SETTING THE DIGITAL CLOCK:  It has been covered extensively which means it usually isn’t MfM material, but the delay in the DTV switchover is too important not to lead with.  The network O&O’s have agreed to extend their analog coverage to the new June 12^th deadline.  An estimated 190 stations have already switched to digital.  Another 491 decided to stay with the February 17^th switchover.  Of those, 123 were questioned by the Federal Communications Commission.  Of those stations, 53 were allowed to go ahead after agreeing to a series of conditions while 43 agreed to continue transmitting in analog and ten are being reviewed.  And if you’re any good at math, you realize there are 17 missing, but I don’t know what’s happening to them.  Nielsen has “adjusted its plans… in this uncertain environment” to take into account the consumer confusion surrounding the original date, as well as the fact that there will be a period between March 4^th and June 11^th in which stations may opt for a gradual cut-off; and Nielsen says it expects the same scenario expected for the original February 17^th cut-off to happen on the extended June 12^th cut-off but with a “lower volume of activity.”  Meanwhile, stations in Wilmington, North Carolina, (including former client WECT) are feeling good that they were the Beta test site for the digital transition and are already done with all this confusion.  And, finally, in the interest of full disclosure, WNEG-TV, which is owned by the University of Georgia’ Research Foundation is staying with the February 17^th cut-off.          

      MEASURE ME THIS, MEDIAMAN:  What area of new media growth has spawned a series of new measurement efforts?  The answer – online video.  Well, that and user generated content… and advertising… and… oh, never mind.  The point is they’re all intertwined and nobody quite has a handle on it all.  The Interactive Advertising Bureau has released VPAID – Video Player-Ad Interface Definitions Guidelines – just kind of rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?  The point, according to the IAB website, is to build “a common language for buying, selling, creating and delivering digital video advertising.”  Talking about rolling off the tongue, the Association for Downloadable Media whose mission is to “monetize episodic consumer-downloaded content” has also issued a set of standards and guidelines to insure “a landscape favorable to the commercialization of web-delivered shows.”   Advertising giants Starcom Mediavest Group as well as Publicis Groupe’s Vivaki have pulled together some of their major advertisers to create something they call “The Pool” – also for the ostensible purpose of creating standards for digital video ads.  If that sounds like the same thing as the IAB, the folks involved in The Pool say, no, the IAB is about creating consistency in online video advertising, the pool is about creating more spending in online video advertising.  Meanwhile, online video ad network Tremor Media has announced a new measurement tool in conjunction with comScore to convert online video measurement into something similar to television measurement standards.  The group has created an online GRP (Gross Rating Points) system that breaks out the analytics into demographics, unique visitors and reach and frequency standards familiar to television executives. 

On a very much related note, the New America Foundation has created a website (measurementlab.net) to test your Internet connection speed.  Of course, there are several ways already to do this.  The difference is that this site determines if your ISP is specifically blocking or “throttling” online video delivery services such as BitTorrent.  Talking about which, there is a website which claims to be the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker.  Called thepiratebay.org, it was founded by a Swedish anti-copyright group to facilitate video file sharing.

      PIRACY OFF THE HIGH SEAS:  Of course, such ‘file sharing’ is often called something else by the content creators – piracy.  And it just doesn’t take place off the coast of Somalia either. According to a geo targeted map put together by the Pirate Bay group, the chief source of those video streams is China with a quarter (25.3%) of all those connections worldwide.  At any given minute, the map shows that there are more than 337,000 users making connections.  The U.S. accounted for about half that number (12.8%) with an average of 171,000 users online at any given minute.  Interestingly, despite its size, there were only 12,000 connections being made in India through BitTorrent, accounting for less than one percent of the world total.  Even mighty Russia only had 8,300 users.  Population-challenged Australia had twice the number of either.  The map is updated on the quarter hour, and when I last looked, there were more than 1.3 Million people on-line at the minute I checked.  There were 2,145 users online from Iceland, 279 in Kenya, and 53 from the Faroe Islands.  You can visit the site yourself and entertain yourself for hours at http://geo.keff.org.  And just to keep my facts and factoids stream of consciousness going, German based website Torrentfreak.com which tracks downloaded videos says the most downloaded video is NBC’s hit series Heroes with 5 Million downloads.  By way of comparison, the show averages 10 Million viewers.  The most pirated movie this week was Underwood, Rise of the Lycans with a Million downloads, followed by The Day the Earth Stood Still, Thick as Thieves, Changelings and Sex Drive.  Meanwhile, an article in the New York Times earlier this month argues that the studios may be losing the piracy battle.  The reporters say the studios may be having their “Napster moment” with DVD sales at their lowest in five years.  What is contributing to the surge is that people don’t have to download the entire video any more, they can just stream it.  While the battle over video clips seems to have eased with recent acquiescence by sites like YouTube, the full-length movie battle has just begun with sites like SuperNovaTube providing a repository and connections called “link farms” to movies.

      TRIVIAL COMMUNICATION AS AN ART FORM:  That’s how The Wall Street Journal described the recent Shorty Awards in which 30,000 twitterers competed for top honors, with an awards ceremony (No, I’m not making this up) in Brooklyn.  The ceremony will be hosted by CNN anchor Rick Sanchez with celebrity tweeters such as MC Hammer.  The winner of the hotly contested contest was a woman who tweets in character as Peggy Olson, one of the characters on the AMC hit series Mad Men. On the flip side of the twitter trivial, New York Times tech writer David Pogue has declared himself a twitter fan.  Pogue admitted to being a cynic but changed his mind when someone showed him the power of twitter crowdsourcing.  A fellow judge at a contest twittered a question and got a response that not only answered the question but provided links.  Pogue demonstrated the power of twittering in a speech to an audience in which he twittered the question – how to cure hiccups.  Numerous replies provided all kinds of fodder for discussion.  Of course, he got into ‘trouble’ with his fellow twitterers who didn’t appreciate being used as guinea pigs in the demonstration.  But that’s another story.  Meanwhile, several reports are circulating that the Twitter founders are trying to figure out a way to monetize the application which has proved popular but not profitable.  And, proving that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, several Twitter-like copies have sprouted up, sort of like knock-offs to popular TV series.  Twiddeo is a video version of Twitter and Wiggio is a college-based form of Twitter.        

      COCKTAIL CHATTER:  Slightly more people believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution (40%) than in creationism, according to a recent poll by Harris Interactive, which notes that the number of both is still a minority.  A re-analysis of earlier survey results but only recently released by the Pew Research Center in conjunction with the 200^th anniversary of Darwin’s birth confirms those numbers with Pew Research (at 42%) and Gallup (44%).  But the Pew Research finds more people believing in natural selection (26% vs. 14% for Gallup) while Gallup finds more people believing that a Supreme Being guided the evolutionary process (36% vs. 21% for Pew Research).  The re-analysis by research director Scott Keeter of the surveys (done in 2005 and 2006) makes the point that the reason for the difference may be that the Gallup survey referenced a belief in God while the Pew Research made no mention of God.       

Considering that four out of five adult Americans believe in God, the Harris pollsters note it may not be surprising that the poll (done in December of 2008) also found that more people believe in miracles (75%) angels (71%), hell (62%) and the devil (59%).  But what may be surprising is the sizable minorities who believe in ghosts (44%), UFO’s (36%) witches and astrology (31%), and reincarnation (24%).  Catholics are more likely than Protestants to believe in evolution (52% to 32%) and Protestants are more likely to believe in creationism (54% to 46%).   A majority of adults believe that all or most of the New Testament (54%) and the Old Testament (55%) are the “Word of God” but less than half that number (26%) believe the Torah is the word of God even though it is the same as the first five books of the Old Testament. 

      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 - February 10, 2009

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        February 10, 2009                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

      TELEVISION – ALIVE AND WELL

      MEDIA’S SHOTGUN WEDDING

      YOUTUBE JOURNALISM CONTEST

      COMPARE AND CONTRAST CELEBRITIES

      COCKTAIL CHATTER:  

 

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      TELEVISION – ALIVE AND WELL:  Two separate articles in two widely diverse publications, but with the same message.   In Broadcasting and Cable, it’s the speech of Lions Gate CEO Jon Feltheimer.  In The New York Times, it’s an analysis by San Jose State University business professor Randall Stross (which, BTW, thank you to the many MfM readers who sent this to me.)  Feltheimer gets the “word-smithy” award, arguing that it is not television that is dead but bad programming that is dead because “a bad economy is the best critic on the planet.”  Unlike oil and gas, he says, “entertainment is a rare renewable resource… (and) a ten year old TV show is not the same as a ten year old TV set… (because) the very best shows don’t age… their value is re-energized every time they are touched by the spark of a new market, technology or platform.”  As an example, he cites his company’s Dirty Dancing franchise which has been seen by 50 Million moviegoers in 150 countries, sold 30 Million DVD’s, 32 Million soundtrack CD’s and sold out theatres in seven cities in six counties over four continents after being released as a stage play – 20 years after its initial release.  The trick, he says, is “simply to engage the voice of the artist with the mind of the consumer”  to produce content that is “recognizable… identifiable… relatable… and, above all, renewable.”  Stross says a “tipping point” has been reached between print and screen with the ‘video experience’ taking charge and the most resilient video experience remains the television.  To illustrate his point, he notes that while 100 Million viewers in the U.S. watched 5.9 Billion YouTube videos, it was not a cannibalization of TV viewership but an addition.  The 2.7 persons in the average American household sat in front of their average 2.9 television sets for a record-setting 142 hours a month last year, an increase of five hours while Internet use averaged 27 hours a month, an increase of an hour and a half.  The great arbiter – money – also reinforces the television dominance because the “overabundance of supply” with some 4.5 Trillion display ads shown U.S. Internet users in 2008 means very inexpensive rates.  Both men note the growth of the digital economy, but argue that in the end, it is not a replacement alternative so much as a complementary alternative… at least for now.

      MEDIA’S SHOTGUN WEDDING:  It’s between the Web and TV.  Continuing the theme from the first article, the big debate is can the two get married.  Columnist Tom Regan of the Christian Science Monitor reviewed articles going back to 1996 predicting the marriage of the two, but he argues it will never happen because television is a passive experience while going on the Web is interactive.  On the flip side of that, the Wall Street Journal carried an article that predicted that the percentage of Web-enabled TV’s being sold will jump from the one percent sold last year to 14% by 2012.  And, of course, the fall-out continues from the discussion of Net-enabled TV’s at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year with Yahoo announcing deals with several TV manufacturers to build its online service into their sets.  Meanwhile, it may not be a marriage – more like heavy petting – but the Gray Television group and Backchannel Media have announced a “Clickable TV’ deal bringing a level of interactivity to the TV watching experience with viewers able to “bookmark” television content to their computer by hitting a button on their remote.  Backchannel says the deal brings its roster of Clickable TV stations to 68 nationwide.  Meanwhile, apropos of nothing in particular but I think it’s some how related, DVR maker Tivo reported a “significant spike” in time shifting of prime time programming last year with more than half the programs being watched on a time shifted basis.  Time shifting was lowest in the summer months (39%) but highest in sweeps months (54%).

      YOUTUBE JOURNALISM CONTEST:  Kind of sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it?  Sort of like the phrase “citizen journalism” that some people object to.  But then you go the site (http://www.youtube.com/projectreport) and, well, it’s time to eat your words.  YouTube’s news manager (yes, there really is such a position and such a person) Olivia Ma told website journalism.co.uk that the project proves that “everyday citizens from around the world can contribute meaningfully to the newsgathering process.”   The Overall winner of the contest (which was supported by the Pulitzer Center) made his final film on the residents of Camphill, a community for disabled adults in California.  News manager Ma also says the contest proves that there are alternatives to the traditional way to enter the news business and proof of that is that semi-finalist Torrey Meeks has been signed up by the Washington Times.  Not that it’s necessarily a measure of quality but the YouTube site has drawn nearly a Million views.  For those journalism teachers amongst the MfM readers, it’s worth visiting the site just to watch the “Tips from the Frontlines” three part series showing how to produce a “news pod” report.  Similar to the point about television and digital media, Ma argues that citizen reporters and professional journalists can not only co-exist but actually collaborate in a “media eco-system.” 

Again, apropos of nothing in particular but, again, I think it’s some how related, the Poynter Institute’s Al Tompkins has been extolling the virtues of one-man-band/ video journalist/ whatever-term-you-want Joe Little whose stand-ups, shot solo, may be some of the most imaginative, creative stand-ups you will ever see.  You can find them by searching Joe Little on YouTube.  (Okay, I’ll help you out --   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO356cp9tKE. ) I don’t know what it says about Al or YouTube, but the video has only had about 5,400 views.  As a side note, the Knight Citizens News Network (http://www.kcnn.org)  offers a ten step citizens’ guide to Open Government.  The website ranks all 50 states in terms of open-ness of government as well as providing a very good primer on how to use open records and what government meetings are open.

      COMPARE AND CONTRAST CELEBRITIES:  It’s an interesting exercise (yeah, yeah, maybe only to me) to look at the list of “people to watch” in 2009, compiled by TVWeek as compared to Forbes Web Celeb list.  The TVWeek rounds up the usual suspects: Oprah Winfrey, David Gregory, Dr.Mehmet Oz, Jay Leno and Leslie Moonves, as well as  MTV’s Stephen Friedman, Tribune’s Ed Wilson, Hulu’s Jason Kilar, Fox producer Chris Coelen, ABC’s Barry Jossen, media buyer Alan Cohen and just to prove they’re hip – Barack Obama. 

The Forbes list is a who who of I-don’t-know-who’s-who.  Forbes starts its list with celebrity blogger Mario Lavandeira (and if you just went, who?, don’t worry, so did I.)  But that’s the point.  These are the people who are leading the online revolution.  For example, Techcrunch blogger Michael Arrington and Digg founder Kevin Rose, you might know.  But have you ever visited blog site Postsecret created by Frank Warren or do you know Cory Doctorow of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or Mashable’s 23-year-old Pete Cashmore.  And Italian comedian Beppe Grillo?  Nope, don’t know him, but now I will.  Add to the list -- Mommy blogger Heather “Dooce” Armstrong, venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki; self described entrepreneur and blogger Jason Calacanis who runs Mahalo.com, tech blogger Robert Scoble, who is also a managing director for FastCompany.TV;   sports blogger Will Leitch, who also writes for New York magazine; media critic Jeff Jarvis who runs buzzmachine.com, actor and blogger WilWheaton who is one of the most-read users on microblogging site Twitter.  Know any of them?  No?  Let’s keep going --  statistician and blogger Nate Silver who has the distinction of being maybe the only person to correctly call the winner in 49 states in the election; tech journalist Om Malik who writes for Business 2.0 and the Wall Street Journalist; humorist and blogger Owen Thomas; Dave Winer, blogger and programmer who helped develop RSS; marketing guru Seth Godin; Brian Lam, the man behind one of the biggest blogs in the world – gadget size gizmodo.com; Mark Frauenfelder who founded culture zine Boing Boing; Steve Rubel, the PR expert behind micropersuasion.com; videocaster John C. Dvorak; and finally, Leo Laporte, internet broadcaster behind This Week in Tech.  And last but not least, one name you probably do know, on the list – Matt Drudge.         

      COCKTAIL CHATTER:  A company named Celestis that specializes in ‘memorial spaceflights’ has announced that it will launch the final remains of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry who died in 1991 and his wife, Majel Barrett, who died in December of last year into deep space in a specially created capsule.  The CEO of the Taj Mahal Hotel and Towers that was attacked in Mumbai says the families of the 15 hotel employees killed in that attack will receive the deceased’s’ salary and medical benefits for the rest of their lives.  And as a cocktail chatter side note, what kind of font are you?  Helvetica.  Times New Roman.  The folks at PBS.org have created an online quiz that answers that question.  Find out for yourself at http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/helvetica/quiz.html.    

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Message From Michael - Super Bowl Edition - February 2

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        February 2, 2009                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

    THE SUPERBOWL EDITION

      TWO NOBODIES FROM NOWHERE

      THE THREE SCREEN EFFECT

      SHOW ME THE MONEY

      SPORTS COCKTAIL CHATTER

 

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      TWO NOBODIES FROM NOWHERE IN SUPERBOWL:  First off, let’s just say upfront that it was a great game.  But even greater may be the fact that two unemployed brothers from Batesville, Indiana, took top honors in USA Today’s Ad Meter contest for best ad during the Super Bowl.  Their ad in which a guy gets ‘free’ Doritos by smashing a vending machine with a crystal ball scored ahead of perennial winner Anheuser-Busch --  and USA Today reporter Bruce Horovitz notes --  51 ‘big-budget’ advertisers.  Brothers Dave and Joe Herbert who described themselves as two nobodies from nowhere won $1 Million from Doritos maker Frito-Lay which sponsored a UGC contest for the best amateur-produced spot. It was a narrow win (8.46) in the USA Today poll over AB’s spot in which a Clydesdale reclaims his love from a circus (8.42), but a win none the less.  AB also took the third spot with its Clydesdale fetching a limb (8.26).  Bridgestone took the 4^th place (7.83) with its Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head driving spot while Doritos came back to claim spot #5 (7.79) with the man given super powers by Doritos.  USA Today uses a second by second real time meter to track the ads.  (You can see the ads and how they rated by age group, demographic and gender by visiting the website http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/admeter/2009admeter.htm)  But the fat lady has not sung, so to speak.  YouTube is running its own contest through this week to see which is the most popular ad.  Visit the website youtube.com/adblitz to vote.  I should note the YouTube site has already had more than a million page views.     

      THE THREE SCREEN EFFECT:  As usual it’s not just the nearly 100 Million TV viewers that the advertisers are trying to score with.  It’s what happens on-line as well as on air as well as in hand with mobile downloads.  As AdAge says in an article questioning whether the $3 Million is worth it, the ads pay off with Web traffic, publicity and sales.  Analysts with Google say, for example, that four out of five advertisers (84%) in last year’s Super Bowl had a URL in their ad while 70% launched search campaigns in conjunction with their ad campaign.  WebProNews notes that even businesses not advertising during the Super Bowl can take advantage of Super Bowl mania by taking advantage of Search Engine Optimization techniques like tagging and linking Super Bowl related articles on their websites.  Website ‘hoster’ GoDaddy.com produced TV spots that specifically drove viewers to its website to see the conclusion of the ads using sexual innuendo (something which several critics say dominated this year’s ads, along with physical humor.)  Stealing a page from the GoDaddy handbook, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) produced several “Veggie Love” spots which were banned by the network because of their sexual innuendo and got exactly what PETA wanted – upwards of a million views on-line.  Meanwhile San-Francisco based Common Sense Media released a report timed with the Super Bowl slamming the NFL sports programming for airing ads “hugely inappropriate for a family audience.”

Of course when you saw the headline three screen, you probably thought I would be talking about the first ever 3D spots during the Super Bowl.  PCMag has a lengthy article explaining how the new 3D used in the Super Bowl spots differs from the old style.  A co-operative effort between Intel and Dreamworks, the ads used a different technique nicknamed InTru3D which PCMag explains differs from the Red and Blue color variation used in previous 3D efforts and which will be used in the movie Monsters and Aliens.  You can see it for yourself on line.  Sobe beverage drink has drawn numerous on-line views as well as the on air spot for its 3D ads in the Super Bowl.  As unusual as the 3D ads was the Super Bowl’s first one-second ad – a glimpse of the Miller Beer delivery man yelling “High Life.”     

      SHOW ME THE MONEY:  In something of a counter-point to AdAge’s point about the value of the $3 Million ads, AdWeek injects a note of reality.  No, they didn’t all cost $3 Million.  Long-time advertisers Anheuser Busch and PepsiCo paid closer to $2.4 Million, in part because of their long relationship and their “bulk buy.”  In actual fact, NBC’s VP of Sales confirmed that most of the ads were in the $2.8 Million to $2.9 Million range, which is still up five percent and more from last year’s $2.7 Million on FOX.  Not surprising in this economic climate.  Also not surprising is the defection of some traditional Super Bowl advertisers, including American car manufacturers General Motors and Ford.  Instead, you saw ads from Hyundai which enlisted Inaugural Day cellist Yo Yo Ma and Audi which did a parody of movie race car scenes.  Several publications have noted that NBC had a slower time selling spots this year, with several spots still available up until the last week before the game.

      COUNTER PROGRAMMING:  As a side note, other networks counter-programmed the Super Bowl with “bowls” of their own.  Animal Planet once again ran its “Puppy Bowl” featuring puppies rescued from animal shelters as well as singing parrot and other animals.  ABC aired the “Wipeout Bowl” featuring some couch potatoes competing against some very fit cheerleaders.  The WE network went with “Super Bawl Sunday” with back to back tear jerker movies.  In a similar vein, playing off movies, AMC had the “Death Wish Bowl” with Charles Bronson movies.         

      SPORTS COCKTAIL CHATTER.  Okay, so I did this last week, but hey, I ran across some more interesting factoids.  For example, the latest Harris Interactive Poll shows that Pro Football is Americans’ favorite sport, with a third (31%) picking it as their favorite.  That’s twice as many as picked “America’s national past time”, Baseball (16%), two and a half times more than College Football (12%), nearly four times more than auto racing (8%) which actually beat out Pro Basketball in popularity (6%), which was only slightly ahead of Hockey (5%) which tied with Men’s College Basketball (5%) but which beat out Men’s Golf (4%).  Adding to the controversy over national past time, baseball has dropped seven points in popularity since the poll was first taken in 1985 while football has risen seven points.  As a side note, only Women’s Tennis scored anything in the popularity contest with a dismal one percent citing it as their favorite sport.  None of the other women’s sports (pro basketball, college basketball, soccer or golf) scored at all. 

However, for a little more perspective on this, reporter Bryan Curtis had an interesting analysis in The Week In Review section of this Sunday’s New York Times.  The National Football League argues its case, citing the fact that pro football scores in TV ratings (with a wide margin over baseball and other sports) as well as in game attendance (with games 90% of capacity) and the highest revenues ($7 Billion in 2007, a Billion ahead of Baseball).  But Major League Baseball has some numbers of its own with 78.5 Million attendance at MLB games in 2008, compared to the NFL’s 17 Million, and that doesn’t include Minor League Baseball’s attendance of 43.2 Million.  Basketball aficionados can cite the fact that there are more people who claim to be basketball players (25.9 Million) than in any other sport, including Dribbler In Chief Barack Obama.  Worldwide, the International Basketball Federation estimates that 450 Million people play the game, and the National Basketball Association claims 1.76 Billion TV viewers worldwide.

      FOOTNOTE:  Obviously with all the focus on the Super Bowl, a lot of other news was left out.  So look for an updated Message from Michael shortly.     

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