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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