Message from Michael - Online Video - October 26, 2009

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        October 26, 2009                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

      BONO AND CNN AND NATO

      WASTING AWAY AGAIN IN VIDEO-VILLE

      CELEBRITY CULTURE COSMOS

      TOO IMPORTANT NOT TO NOTE

      WHICH SITE IS SMARTER

      COCKTAIL CHATTER – DOGS AND DAWGS

 

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      BONO AND CNN AND NATO:  What happens when you put the three of them together?   Well, nothing actually, but it gave me a good headline for this week’s MfM about online video.  First, it’s Bono and band mates U2 taking part in a live streaming event Sunday night, with their concert from the Rose Bowl live on YouTube.  It’s not exactly a ‘first’ for YouTube, but it is a milestone.  The concert played live in 16 countries from Australia to Brazil, India to Ireland, Israel to Italy, and is being rebroadcast continuously, with running comments from people around the world.  At 4 o’clock in the morning, (yes, that’s when I got up to watch), there were 109,000 people still online commenting, often times, interestingly, in languages other than English.  Then comes CNN which Monday morning unveiled its already popular but newly re-designed hyper-video website.  Except for one little problem -- I’m sure it will be fixed by the time you read this, but in a test run by yours truly, every video linked to the same one interview with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.  A story headlined One Soldier’s Tale – Hamid Karzai.  Photographer Falls in Love – Hamid Karzai.  Not Your Average Lowriders – Hamid Karzai.  Whoops!  Of course, CNN isn’t the only website incorporating more video.  Time recently revamped its website to add more video; Ditto USAToday, Newsweek, BusinessWeek; even the somewhat staid Wall Street Journal now provides twice-daily video news updates.  And proof that online video is moving beyond entertainment and snackable viral videos, the Secretary General of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, is posting his messages to member countries online.  Not exactly riveting stuff but interesting as a development.  NATO is using a video and mobile platform known as Kyte, but it is only one of dozens and more video delivery systems.  What I wonder, as we look at various video delivery systems for our station website, is how do you choose?  Kyte versus vimeo versus veoh versus joost versus whatever.

      WASTING AWAY AGAIN IN VIDEO-VILLE:  If you’re looking for your lost shaker of salt, go to website ovguide.com.  It lists everything from Anime to Adult, Food to Fitness, Games to Guns, and Music to Military videos.  Of course there are the ‘usual suspects’ in the line-up of video sources, but there are other unusual ones.  The War Profiteers which shows video shot by soldiers in Iraq; PressTV which provides an Iranian view of the world and Iran itself, including such topics as “health tourism in Iran”; Or LifeinItaly which, well, that’s obvious; Rawfoodhowto which provides guidance for a vegan lifestyle; Japander which shows A-List American celebrities doing commercials in Japan, like Charlize Theron doing a spot with a puppet for Honda; Sumo.tv which has nothing to do with Japan but is instead the “UK’s leading video sharing community.”   Under the “general/viral” category, there were some 300 websites listed; under education/ instruction, some 150; another 100 under the Anime category.  Anyway, you get the point.  Interestingly, many of the videos from the States as well as overseas, were hosted on YouTube despite the various video platforms available.  As a side note, I found it interesting that increasingly popular video website Hulu specifically notes that it can not be accessed outside of the U.S. because of rights issues.     

      CELEBRITY CULTURE COSMOS:  It lives on Twitter where seven of the top ten Twitterers being followed are celebrities with Ashton Kucher (roughly 3.9 Million followers) topping the list with his blahgirls.com website in tow, followed by Britney Spears (3.618 Million), and Ellen DeGeneres only two thousand behind (3.616 Million).  Then comes CNN’s breaking news twitter (2.8 Million and Twitter itself (2.5 Million).  Then it’s back to celebrity row with Kim Kardashian, Ryan Seacrest, Barack Obama, John C. Mayer and Oprah rounding out the top ten; and all of them hovering around the 2.5 Million number.  I don’t know what it says about Twitterdom metrics, but number one Kucher had 3,779 tweets while number two Spears only had 299; But, Spears was following 431,270 while Kucher was only following 255.  President Obama only had 390 tweets but was following an enormous 752,552 others.  Actually if you count the President and English alternative rock band Coldplay, 17 of the top 20 Twitters are celebrity twitters.  Besides CNN and Twitter itself, only the New York Times made the top 20 list, according to website TwitterCounter.

      TOO IMPORTANT NOT TO NOTE:  The folks at Microsoft have come out with an updated Windows 7 operating system.  Despite the controversy surrounding the Vista system, the new OS is getting good reviews, including the New York Times influential technology writer David Pogue.  The folks at the Federal Trade Commission have proposed a new set of rules governing bloggers who are “influencers” getting free products to review or getting paid to review the products.  The rules have stirred up a controversy in the online and word of mouth marketing groups.  Meanwhile, the folks at that ‘other’ governmental agency, better known as the Federal Communication Commission are proposing a set of rules to govern Net Neutrality.  I know I’ve mentioned this before, but as the headline says, it’s too important not to note.     

      WHICH SITE IS SMARTER:  Is it iTunes or YouTube?  Both of them are now offering hundreds of online lessons, and from some very prestigious universities.  For example, iTunes has the University of Cambridge Judge Business School along with Yale School of Management and even HEC Paris, a leading French business school.  As website MarketingVox put it, get ready for an iMBA.  The iTunes folks have added a software update now that allows you to download these lessons to your iPhone and iPod Touch.  The folks at YouTube can also lay claim to Cambridge as well as Nottingham, Harvard, along with the University of California and San Diego State University just to name a few.  But they don’t have the field sewn up by any means.  Website AcademicEarth.org which was named by Time, magazine as one of the top websites of 2009, offers an impressive array of Ivy League courses.  The top course when we visited was Stanford University’s one on string processing which is an introductory computer programming course.  Although it’s pretty funny when you visit the actual on-line course, the top question – when is the mid-term?

      COCKTAIL CHATTER:  On the flip side of the educational spectrum, you may have heard this, because the list came out in late Spring, but the top “party school” in the United States, according to Playboy.com, is the University of Miami.  My own University of Georgia came in at seventh behind arch-rival University of Florida at fourth.  Others making the list are University of Texas/ Austin (2); San Diego State University which the list makers say has consistently made the top ten list every year since they started (3); University of Arizona (5); University of Wisconsin/ Madison (6); Louisiana State University (8); University of Iowa (9) and West Virginia University (10).  According to MoneyWatch and CNN.com, the ten least stressful jobs are civil engineer, occupational therapist, software architect, speech language pathologist, telecommunications network engineer, technical writer, software developer.  The top three or least three, depending on how you look at it, were college professor, physical therapist and in number one – education/ training consultant.  One of the consistent points in nearly every one of the jobs on the list was one word – flexibility.   Finally from the book Inside of a Dog, a Beagle nose has 300 Million receptor sites compared with a human being’s six million.  Better yet, or even stranger, the book says researchers studying the temporal patterns of dogs interacting with people found the patterns to be “similar to the timing patterns among mixed-sex strangers flirting.” 

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Message from Michael - Media Bias - October 19, 2009

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        October 19, 2009                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

      BIAS IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

      AN OXYMORON – PRESS PRESTIGE

      RIDDLE ME THIS, MEDIA-MAN

      THE MURROW FOR CITIZEN JOURNALISM

      WISDOM OF THE CROWDS

 

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      BIAS IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER:  Or maybe not.  Not when four different surveys say the same thing.  A whopping four out of five people (83.6%) surveyed by Sacred Heart University in its annual poll believe the national (important distinction – versus local) media are very or somewhat biased.  The numbers are less dramatic but no less significant in a poll by the Pew Research Center which found three out of five people (60%) believe the media (no distinctions) are politically biased.  The First Amendment Center based at Vanderbilt University survey was even less dramatic but, again, no less significant with half (49%) of those surveyed saying the media is biased.  In the Sacred Heart poll only one in seven (14.1%) view the media as unbiased while in the Pew poll, it was nearly double that, with one in four (26%) saying the media tries to be politically unbiased.  Similarly, the Pew poll found that only a quarter of those surveyed (29%) believe news media generally get the facts straight.  Almost double that (63%) say media reports are often inaccurate.  All three polls were released in the last month.  Despite that, interestingly enough, two of the polls found that the public believe in the news media’s “watchdog” role.  In the First Amendment Center survey, nearly three quarters (71%) see a free press as a necessary watchdog on government.  A separate poll by the Pew Center for People and the Press found a similar response with only slightly fewer (62%) citing the watchdog role for the press to keep political leaders “from doing things that should not be done.”

      AN OXYMORON – PRESS PRESTIGE:  Okay, the smart ones amongst you (and that includes virtually all Message readers) will note that I said four surveys but only cited three.  Well, the fourth is one done last year by Harris Interactive which found that more than half (54%) of Americans “tend not to trust” the press with less than a third (30%) trusting the pressing.  All right, the figures are a little old, but they comport with the previous figures cited by the other three surveys.  Better yet, the Harris folks did release a survey of a different sort in August of this year which looked at the public’s view of which professions are most prestigious.  Yep, you guessed it.  Journalists are at the bottom of the heap (with 17% calling their work one of “very great prestige.”)  That’s in line with union leaders and entertainers (17%), bankers (16%), actors (15%), stockbrokers (13%), accountants (11%) but well above the lowest rated profession of all – real estate brokers (5%).  And you can understand journalists scoring lower than scientists (57%), doctors (56%), nurses (54%) and teachers (51%).  But Congressmen (28%), lawyers (26%) and business executives (23%)?  I have to admit I don’t understand how, in this celebrity culture, actors scored so low; and I found it interesting but odd that firefighters (the top profession cited) scored so significantly higher (62%) than police officers (44%).

      RIDDLE ME THIS, MEDIA-MAN:   There were several points in the different surveys that made you (well, me anyway) do a double-take.  The most surprising came from the Sacred Heart survey in which the director of the Polling Institute says little more than half (55.9%) expect the media to tell the truth.  Even more surprising, bordering on shocking, nearly half (45.9%) say they “have permanently stopped watching a news media organization, print or electronic, because of perceived bias.”  That’s a little hard to swallow, on several levels.  Even harder to swallow, the poll found that by a six-to-one margin, Americans would have preferred national media to cover the death of Lt. Brian Bradshaw who was killed fighting in Afghanistan than Michael Jackson.  Both men died on the same day.

Some consolation for you die-hard journalists was that the First Amendment Foundation survey found that more than half (55%) cited “freedom of the press” as one of the five freedoms in the First Amendment.  On the flip side of that, only one in five (20%) cited freedom of religion, freedom of press and freedom of assembly.  Now, a quick test for you.  What’s the fifth freedom cited in the First Amendment? Tick, tick, tick, tick. Time’s up.  It’s the freedom to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.”  If you didn’t get it, don’t feel too bad.  Only four percent of those surveyed remembered it.

      A PERSONAL MESSAGE TO POLLSTERS:  Stop asking questions about whether more Republicans than Democrats like Fox, or whether more Democrats than Republicans like CNN.  Everybody with a kindergarten education or above has figured out that media viewing reflects political partisanship.  The Sacred Heart poll, the Pew Poll, the Harris Interactive poll and several others continue to ask the same question and get the same answer.  Get over it.  Move on.  Let’s actually ask something interesting.  Yeesh.  Okay, okay, commentary on my part.

      THE MURROW FOR CITIZEN JOURNALISM:  The newly renamed Radio Television Digital News Association (formerly the Radio Television News Directors Association) awarded a special Edward R. Murrow award to British Columbia website thetyee.ca., “an independent and not owned by any big corporation (website) dedicated to publishing lively, informative news and views, not dumbed down fluff.”  Although it may not be ‘citizen journalism’ in its truest sense, it is citizen journalism in its best sense.  If you want to see what good citizen media can look like, visit the site.  Other website winners are CNN.com (as usual and well deserved) for television networks; NPR.com (as usual and well deserved) for Radio Networks; Raleigh’s WRAL-TV (not only as usual, but as always) for large market television; Washington’s WTOP.com in large market radio; Providence’s WJAR-TV (turnto10.com) for small market television; and WAKR-AM (AkronNewsNow.com) in the small market radio category.  Tyee, by the way, refers to a salmon and, the website says, embodies their belief in swimming against the current.   

And if you want to have your faith restored in broadcast journalism (especially after reading the articles above) visit the RTDNA’s Murrow website which this year allows you to view all the winning entries.  Some incredible pieces.  Congratulations to all the winners, but I have to make special note of my former station KWTV in Oklahoma City which won in the category of breaking news/ larger market for (what else) tornado coverage; former client KWWL for news documentary/ small market for its rising waters flood coverage; and KOMU at the University of Missouri where I once hung my news hat, for feature reporting/ small market for its beautifully shot “magic tree.”  All of these are available at:  http://www.rtdna.org/pages/media_items/2009-edward-r.-murrow-national-winners1799.php.

      WISDOM OF THE CROWDS:  Or maybe not.  After last week’s Message about citizen journalism and the growth of interactive of consumer generated media, an article in Technology Review is worth noting.  It found that a small percentage of online reviewers accounted for a larger proportion of the actual reviews being done.  The result is that the all-powerful Word of Mouth advertising associated with personal reviews may be significantly skewed by a few people.  Also, as a further footnote to last week’s Message, it would be a misunderstanding to think that the report indicated any bias against citizen journalism or citizen media, depending on which term you prefer.  The point is that user generated content is part of the media future.  The only question is how and to what extent.       

      PROOF OF PERFORMANCE:  Or, as we prefer to say, in consultant-ese, proof of benefit.  We consultants often tell clients that some of the best marketing they can do is to provide proof of the value of your product.  Well, in keeping with that self-promotion advice, I have to note that several newsletters have now picked up on the lead story from a Message two weeks ago, that Internet advertising in the United Kingdom has overtaken Television advertising for the first time.  While the difference is small (23.5% for Internet versus 21.9% for Television), the message is clear, Online Advertising is growing while others are shrinking. 

      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 - Citizen Media - October 12, 2009

Message From Michael                                               

                                                                                                                        October 12, 2009                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

      CITIZEN MEDIA TURNING INTO CORPORATE MEDIA

      YOUR OWN SECRET DECODER RING

      THE EPICENTER OF THE CITIZEN MEDIA EARTHQUAKE

      EVERYBODY’S TRYING TO BE MY BABY

      EVERYBODY’S GOT SOMETHING TO HIDE EXCEPT ME AND MY MEDIA

      COCKTAIL CHATTER – PLAYBOY AND JOURNALISM

 

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      CITIZEN MEDIA TURNING INTO CORPORATE MEDIA:  That appears to be the end result of a series of acquisitions.  Media big fish MSNBC.com has swallowed up citizen media little fish Everyblock.com.  Meanwhile, the already whale-sized Examiner.com citizen media group which operates in 109 cities has moved from Beluga whale size to Killer whale size, by swallowing up the NowPublic.com citizen media operation.  As a point of clarification, Examiner is owned by the Clarity Digital Group which in turn is owned by the Anschutz Corporation which is best known for its Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), which is “one of the leading sports and entertainment presenters in the world” with operations in the U.S., England, Germany and Australia, just to name a few.  The two other ‘major’ citizen media sites, as indicated by the Knight Citizen News Network, are YourHub.com and BlognetNews.com.  The Knight site lists nearly 800 citizen media sites.

Not to read too much into things, but it probably says something that the MSNBC news release refers to the “growing hyper-local news industry.”  Except that it isn’t – hyper-local.  Or at least it’s not citizen media, although it appears to be rapidly changing into an industry.  For example, the Everyblock website for Atlanta had three stories on its front page – one from WXIA-TV, one from WSB-TV and one from alternative newsweekly Creative Loafing.  In the same way, when I went to the Examiner.com website for Atlanta, Savannah and Augusta, the lead story was about The Twilight Saga.

SideNote:  As a further addendum, a visit to the revised NBC O&O websites which have been ballyhooed as the latest thing in hyper-local news, shows that they, too are not what they seem to be.  They are, admittedly, pretty cool, but it is hipness based on a formula.  For example, San Francisco is sad… Los Angeles is happy… Chicago is angry… These were the headlines and the different cities were all ‘sad, happy, angry’ about some national news story that had some limited local connection.  I found the same repetitiveness between the sites that I noted in the Everyblock websites.         

Footnote:  What is interesting (to me, at least) is that any time you sign on to one of these websites, it automatically reads your ISP address and directs you to the appropriate city.  For example, when I signed on to Everyblock.com, it automatically pulled up the Atlanta version.  Of course it’s not always right.  When I sign on to yourhub.com, I am almost invariably directed to the Denver home site. 

      YOUR OWN SECRET DECODER RING:  It’s not Ovaltine which is offering this, as happened in the movie Christmas Story, but a former minister and newspaper reporter.  They have created the National Association of Citizen Journalists where you have to complete four ‘comprehensive webinars’ along with homework assignments and you get a certificate “suitable for framing” along with a Press sticker for your car and a NACJ press ID badge.  The backers of this ‘movement’, which citizen media site YourHub.com/ Denver actually advertises as an added benefit, are Ron Ross who has a master of divinity degree and a doctor of theology degree and who published an entertainment weekly in Colorado; and Susan Carson Cormier who worked as a reporter and stringer for various newspapers in Arizona and now runs a business in Denver offering ‘writing, editing and marketing services’ to small businesses.

      THE EPICENTER OF THE CITIZEN MEDIA EARTHQUAKE:  It may well be Seattle where three different citizen media operations will soon be battling for hyper-local hegemony.  First there was seattlepostglobe.com created by reporters and (it seems, mostly) photographers who lost their jobs when the Seattle Post Intelligencer shut down.  Now, Fisher Communications a/k/a KOMO-TV has launched a series of ‘hyper-local’ websites focused on ‘community news.”  There are 28 in Portland and 10 in Eugene “complemented by user-generated content” and supported by a local Real Estate company.  Then, it was announced that the Knight Foundation is funding a one year experiment in ‘hyper-local news’ through its J-Lab project.  And what are the five news organizations joining in? The Miami Herald, The Charlotte Observer, the Asheville Citizen-Times, the Tucson-Citizen.com and…. Drum roll, please… The Seattle Times.  The folks at the times say in their announcement that the neighborhood blogs are “staffed by staffed by professionals who share the Times’ journalistic values.”  The idea behind the Networked Journalism Project is to develop a template for future collaborative projects.

On The Flip Side of all this citizen media growth is an announcement that The Washington Post group is shutting down its Loudon Extra website with its ‘hyper-local’ focus.  However, I add this in, noting that I have not been able to verify it.  The initial report was carried by competing news group, Loudon Independent, but when I checked on the Washington Post site, it is still operational.  And I have not been able to get official confirmation from the folks at the Post… who, by the way, (full disclosure) are my long-ago former employers.

      EVERYBODY’S TRYING TO BE MY BABY:  Or so it seems, when a worldwide survey by your semi-good friends at Nielsen shows that nine out of every ten consumers (that’s 90% for those of you statistically inclined) trust recommendations from people they know.  Seven out of ten people trust consumer opinions posted ONLINE (an important difference).  Nielsen says it is now tracking more than 100 Million Consumer Generated Media pieces.  And with that information, they can say semi-unequivocally that consumers’ reliance on Word of Mouth recommendations has increased significantly.

The survey, called Trust in Advertising, was actually done worldwide and found that the Vietnamese were the most trusting of opinions posted online (81%), followed by the Italians (80%), Chinese and French (77%), with the U.S. consumer at #12 (72%).  And in a comment that echoes previous Message reports, Nielsen officials note that online advertising has yet to attract advertising commensurate with online media consumption.

On a semi-related note, the Federal Trade Commission has issued guidelines about blogging that require bloggers doing reviews to indicate clearly when they have received either financial considerations OR been provided free samples of the product being reviewed.  As Public Relations website badpitch so nicely notes, the point is that there is a difference between journalists who do it because they are PAID and bloggers who do it because they are PASSIONATE.

A Side Note:  The same FTC is in the process of examining behavioral targeting advertising.  I don’t know that I can do this in one or two lines, but the point is that behavioral advertising tailors its approach, based on a consumer’s past preferences which raises questions about garnering personal information for advertising use.   

      EVERYBODY’S GOT SOMETHING TO HIDE EXCEPT ME AND MY MEDIA:  Seriously, you have to wonder about whether the issue of mainstream media credibility is fueling the growth of citizen media when several surveys have come out recently, raising questions about the public’s view of journalists.  BUT – and it’s a Big But – the same studies raise questions about the role or influence of the Internet as well.  Possibly the most interesting comes from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.  It found, just like the others, that television leads the pack as the primary source of news as well as the most credible source of news.  For example, three quarters (71%) cite television as their primary source for national and international news and two thirds (64%) cite television as their primary source for local news.  BUT (there’s that word again), while the Internet (at 42%) beat out newspapers (at 33%) for second place when it comes to national and international news, newspapers (at 41%) more than doubled the preference numbers of the Internet (at 17%) when it comes to LOCAL news.  Similarly when it comes to “uncovering” local news, television scores with slightly less than half (44%) while newspapers account for a quarter (25%) which is still double ‘local, independent online organizations’ (11%). 

In a very much similar vein, a survey sponsored by ARAnet, which distributes content and advertising to both print and online, found that Online sources came in 4^th place as a source for news and information as well as for credibility.  A third of those surveyed (31%) by Opinion Research Corporation cited television as their news and information source, well ahead of newspapers and radio (both came in at 19.4%) and way, way ahead of  Online (14.6%).  Television also was the leader in terms of credibility (at 6.5 on a scale of one to ten) but only slightly ahead of newspapers and radio (both at 6.3) but fairly well ahead of Online news sources (5.7 on that scale).  BUT (my third time), the survey notes that higher income people are significantly more likely to turn to Online sources (23.1% of those with incomes over $100,000 versus 14.6% for the general population.)  Those same higher income people are also more likely to give Online sources higher marks for credibility (6.3 versus the 5.7 cited by the general population.)  The same survey found college graduates more likely to go Online for news and information (20% versus 14.6% for the general population) and to give Online sources higher marks (6.5 versus 5.7 for the general population.)

Lastly, a third survey by Sacred Heart University which focused on trust and satisfaction factors found that nearly half of its survey pool (45%) agreed (their word, I should point out) that the Internet “is adequately covering for failing newspapers” while a third (35.6%) disagreed.  This same survey found that four-fifths (85.3%) of those surveyed were familiar with the term “mainstream media.”  Then, when asked who were the ‘members’ of the mainstream media, more than a third cited NBC (37.6%); less than a third cited CBS (32.6%); and even less cited ABC (29.5%).  Somewhat humorously (depending on your sense of humor), a quarter (27.8%) cited CNN as mainstream while a fifth (19.9%) cited Fox and a tenth (12.6%) cited MSNBC.   

      IT’S SO EASY, MRS. ALPERT:  Part of the reason for the growth of the alternative citizen media cites (I would argue) are the tools available for any would-be citizen media maven.  The latest example is FWIX which uses a variety of technologies to filter and select local news content which you can then share with people, becoming your own mini-media-mogul.  More on that in a later Message.

      COCKTAIL CHATTER:  The former CEO of Playboy Enterprises, Christie Hefner, was offered but turned down the position as publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review, according to an article in the Styles section in the New York Times.  However, Hefner has agreed to help create a for-profit arm for CJR modeled on the Harvard Business Review with Victor S. Navasky, the publisher of CJR, who offered her the publisher position.

      DISCLAIMERS:  I admit it; the above material sounds more like commentary than reportage, but… Well, there is no but.  It does border on commentary.  And, yes, I also need to do more (possibly next week’s Message) on the studies about media credibility.  And, yes, I also need to do more about the various tools that make online news gathering easier and easier for garage geeks.

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Message from Michael -- October 5, 2009

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        October 5, 2009                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

      LEAD STORY

      THE FREEMIUM DEBATE CONTINUES

      DIRT IS GOOD

      CHRONOSYNCLASTIC INFUNDIBULUM

      FACTOID OF THE WEEK

      COCKTAIL CHATTER  -- RICH AND RETIRED

 

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      LEAD STORY:  That’s not much of a headline, but it seems appropriate in this instance, because I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why the fact that Internet advertising has overtaken TV advertising in the UK wasn’t the lead story for all the media newsletters I get.  As reported by The Guardian newspaper, the UK has become the first major economy where advertisers spend more on the Internet than on TV.  Actually Denmark was the first country where Internet advertising spending overtook Television advertising spending, but Denmark doesn’t quite make it as a ‘major economy.’  The article cited a report by the Internet Advertising Bureau and Pricewaterhouse Coopers that showed in the first half of this year, Internet advertising accounted for 23.5% (or $1.75 Billion Pounds) of all advertising money spent in the UK compared to 21.9% (or $1.6 Billion Pounds) spent on Television in the first half of this year.  The UK equivalent of the TVB (Television Bureau of Advertising) is called Thinkbox (isn’t that a cool name?).  Officials there make the point that the IAB report lumps everything into Internet advertising including email, classified ads, display ads and search marketing.

      THE FREEMIUM DEBATE CONTINUES:  And if you continue with the idea that what happens in the UK could be a harbinger of things to come in the USA, a Harris Interactive poll in the UK found that just five percent of the Britons surveyed would pay for news online.  Half (53%) said they would pay for online news if it was bundled with a free or discounted print edition while three-quarters (72%) said the most they would pay is “less than 10 British pounds.”  Also from the British side of the pond, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told a group of British broadcasting executives that publishers of general news will have a hard time charging for their online content because there is so much free content available and “the marginal value of paying is not justified based on the incremental value of quantity.”  As reported by Reuters, Schmidt did say that niche content providers, such as business publications, might succeed.  Schmidt’s statement came in response to an announcement by News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch that he could start charging for online content as early as next year.

      DIRT IS GOOD:  So proclaims an ad for laundry detergent which reportedly convinced officials in Singapore to ‘increase recess time at its academics-heavy, stress-inducing schools.’  The Unilever product which is sold as Omo in Asia and Skip in France did this by emphasizing the theme that every child has a right to play and explore.  The Wharton School of Business called it a “customer-engaging social message” that combined Old Media and New Media.  The school’s recently launched project looking into the Future of Advertising says the winning marketing plan is more likely to be a hybrid model that builds on each media format’s strengths.  For example, not only is dirt good, the project says television is good.  A look at TV advertising’s ‘efficacy’ found that there was no erosion of TV’s impact in recent years, despite DVR’s and ad-skipping. Part of the secret to success is running a “two-way dialog with consumers.”  But to find out the rest of the secrets, the school’s Center for Advanced Studies in Management plans a years-long study, including The Fast.Forward project with Google to expand the discussion to a wider audience.

      CHRONOSYNCLASTIC INFUNDIBULUM:  Somewhere out there is a Message reader who probably actually knows what this is.  Not me.  It comes from Kurt Vonnegut’s Sci-Fi novel, The Sirens of Titan and refers to places “where all the different kinds of truths fit together (and) ways to be right coexist.”  At this point, you are all saying, what the heck does this have to do with media?  It is part of the description that the Time magazine editors use for one of their top 50 Websites of 2009 – Get High Now.  No, the website has nothing to do with the illegal high too many of you are familiar with.  It is a high from ‘mind expansion’ illusions or hallucinations shown on the science site and is indicative of the kind of wondrous weirdness that the Internet is capable of.  In keeping with that science fiction theme, the editors also name Wolfram/Alpha as one of the top 50 websites, arguing that the unusual (and challenging) search engine site may actually fulfill the science fiction writers prophesy that at some point the Internet may gain a consciousness of its own (sort of like the computer HAL.)  Most of the websites on the list are much more mundane, with a full complement of the usual suspects – Hulu, YouTube, Google, Flickr, Delicious, and Twitter. Skip them.  Visit the off-beat websites to see what’s going on.  Sites like Know Your Meme which attempts to explain what is funny on the Web, such as Geddan which is the Japanese version of “Get Down” and is a video dance created by inserting a video game cartridge only part way into the holder.  Or Etsy which the editors describe as “the long-haired Birkenstocked love child of Amazon and eBay.”  And, instead of visiting those sites for bargains, go to Shop Goodwill which really does have some bargains.  Instead of Flickr, go to Photosynth which allows you to mash up a 3D version of multiple pictures.  Instead of Craigslist go to CraigLook, which provides a better GUI interface based on the original site.  Instead of Time magazine’s website, go to Issuu which has an enormously diverse set of individual and corporate magazines.  Looking for an alternative to the rants and raves of the blogosphere, go to Fora TV which features well known and insightful authors and speakers, or Academic Earth which leads the “edupunk” movement to move academia into the ‘real world.’

If you don’t have the time or energy (as if I do), two sites made the Time list of top 50 websites and the magazine’s list of top 25 blog sites:  Boing Boing and Metafilter which provide an eclectic look at what’s going on in the “Hal-sian” world of the Internet.  If you do have the time or energy, here are the links:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1918031,00.html

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1879276,00.html

      FACTOID OF THE WEEK:  Traffic on 3G Networks will increase 20 times over in just the next five years, according to a forecast by wireless experts Unwired Insight.  Based on the graph provided by the company, the average traffic per 3G network is about 100 Megabits a month now, but that by 2014 it will top 2,000 Megabits a month.  And, considering this is coming from people with a vested interest in wireless, the report offers the unusually candid assessment that some networks won’t be able to cope with the growth.

      COCKTAIL CHATTER: It’s not likely to break your heart to learn this, but it took a ‘mere’ $930 Million to make it to the Forbes List of the 400 Richest Americans this year.  Last year you had to have $1.3 Billion to make the list.   The list has the usual suspects – Bill Gates at the top, followed by Warren Buffett and Oracle’s Lawrence Ellison.  But it’s the other factoids associated with the list that are most interesting.  Such as the fact that three quarters (314) of those on the list lost money this year compared to a quarter (126) last year.  Buffett lost a whopping $10 Billion, dropping his fortune to $40 Billion.  There was a slight increase in the number of people who made their own wealth (276 compared to 270 the year before) as opposed to being born into wealth.  Despite the presence of 25 year old Mark Zuckerberg as the youngest Billionaire on the list, the average age is 65.8.  Maybe because Zuckerberg is offset by the oldest Billionaire, 95 year old television mogul John Kluge.  And just because it’s hard not to do a message without mentioning social media any more, websiteUberCEO.com reports that only two of the top 100 CEO’s have Twitter accounts and only 13 have LinkedIn accounts.  And not one has a blog.  One of those with a Twitter account – Warren Buffett whom UberCEO reports has 7,441 followers but doesn’t follow anyone.

On the flip side of this economic coin, the Pew Research Center reports that only about half (51%) of all retirees say they retired because they wanted to.  A third (32%) retired because of health or other reasons while one in ten (9%) say their employer forced them to retire.  Despite that, more than half (57%) found retirement ‘very satisfying’ while a quarter (23%) found it ‘fairly satisfying.’  And as you would expect, the voluntary retirees were twice as likely as the reluctant retirees to find life in the slow lane ‘very satisfying’ (75% vs. 37%).
 

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