Message from Michael - digital future - February 22, 2010

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        February 22, 2010  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

      FUHGEDDABOUTIT

      DIALING FOR DIGITAL DOLLARS

      HEADLINES OF THE FUTURE:

      BY THE NUMBERS

      FOOTNOTE TO THE FUTURE

 

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      FUHGEDDABOUTIT:   That’s apparently the reaction of nearly a third (31.6%) of Americans to the Internet.  According to a survey by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, done in conjunction with the Census Bureau, that’s the percentage of Americans who don’t use the Internet anywhere (inside or outside the home).  Now that’s down significantly from the last time the survey was taken in 2007 when more than a third (37.6%) said they didn’t use the Internet anywhere.  But, talk about a reality check on our digital delusions, that is for any and all Internet use, not just broadband Internet access which was the main focus of the survey.  According to the survey done in October of last year, nearly two-thirds (63.5%) of Americans have broadband access.  That is almost the same exact percentage (63%) that the Pew Internet and American Life survey found in June of last year.  Two out of five people surveyed (40.8%) say they don’t have broadband access at home, mainly because they just “don’t need” it or aren’t interested (37.8% of that number); or that it’s too expensive (26.3%).  As a piece of perspective, the U.S. is ranked 12^th in the world in terms of broadband deployment.  Anyway, the figures about non-use were probably the most surprising findings from the survey.  The rest of the survey confirmed what you either already knew or suspected – people with higher incomes and/ or higher education as well as young people (18 to 24) had greater broadband access.  And people in rural areas had less broadband access for the simple reason of lack of availability.

       DIALING FOR DIGITAL DOLLARS:  Americans spent $209.6 Billion buying things online last year, according to comScore’s digital year in review.  But, that was actually a drop of two percent from the previous year and that’s after years of double digit growth.  But (another but) the figure is expected to climb back up again in 2010.  The report also notes that the number of videos viewed online more than doubled year to year, from an amazing 14.3 Billion videos in December of 2008 to an even more amazing 33.2 Billion videos in December of 2009.  The number of unique viewers jumped from 150 Million in 2008 to 178 Million in 2009 while the number of videos those people watched, nearly doubled from the year before – from 95.7 videos in 2008 to 186.9 videos per viewer in 2009.  Now, while the amount of time spent viewing videos increased significantly, it was still only 4.1 minutes per video compared to 3.2 minutes the year before.  Video website Hulu did buck that trend, according to comScore, with its users averaging more than two hours of online video viewing a month.  Of course, YouTube remains the giant of the online video business, accounting for more of the video viewing time (26%) than the next 25 video sites combined (22%).  In the category though of half full or half empty, comScore notes that still meant the myriad of other video sites (the so-called ‘long tail’) accounted for more than half (52%) of all video viewing which speaks to increased fragmentation.  And all of that (as pointed out in a previous message) speaks to increased mobile use.  The comScore report notes that one in five mobile phone subscribers (21%) have unlimited data plans -- a significant increase from the year before (16%).  Equally significant, the number of people with smart phones increased to one in six (16%) from just over one in ten (11%) the year before.  Continuing the significant trend theme, comScore says four out of five Internet users visited a social networking site in December, representing 11% of all time spent online, “making it one of the most engaging activities on the Web.”       

      HEADLINES OF THE FUTURE:  According to a series of scenarios of how media and consumers will intertwine in five years, those headlines could range from a warning about ‘media addiction’ becoming a worldwide epidemic with consumers spending more time online than asleep; to the government providing personal genetic profiles to everybody and companies providing ‘mood-balanced’ news services; to attention deficit order being listed as a global health crisis amidst a consumer movement to ‘switch off’; to media giants creating the world’s largest virtual book club.  The report, Media 2015, created for Unilever, ESPN and marketing company Mindshare, says it will be a balancing act between the amount of media access versus the amount of consumer attention, as to which scenario prevails.  The four scenarios are:  ‘tons of twitter’ in which “media access is unbridled and consumer attention is highly fragmented”;  ‘portal of me’ in which “media access remains always on but in which consumer attention has been narrowed and focused to a number of trusted partners”;  ‘a media buffet’ in which consumer attention is highly fragmented but media access is restrained and consumers “dip in and out of media”;  and ‘traditional new media’ in which both consumer attention and media access is limited because consumers’ media interaction is habitual and stable.  A variety of factors come in to play in the future including increasingly powerful devices and even more readily available information leading to more fragmentation, along with the consumer desire for fame colliding with concerns about privacy.  The result will be more dynamic content being created, more aggregation of that content, while balancing consumer data with consumer trust as consumers “leave data trails wherever they go” and then integrating media consumption into the process. And if you just went, ‘what the heck’, I don’t blame you.  It’s a lot, but it is an interesting lot and you can read it all at  http://www.unileverusa.com/Images/FOM_Final_09_tcm23-206938.pdf .

       BY THE NUMBERS:  It seems like every media outlet has adopted ‘by the numbers’ as a regular feature.  So, in the interests of keeping up with the latest trends…  Apple’s iTunes is expected to soon pass its 10 Billionth download which it is celebrating with a $10,000 gift card to the lucky person, and which WebProNews columnist Mike Sachoff notes is a little chintzy when you consider that at 99cents a pop, how much Apple made off ten billion downloads.  Social (and business) networking site LinkedIn has reached 60 Million which is pretty impressive, considering only two months ago it was at 55 Million.  Although it’s nowhere near (another number here) Facebook’s 400 Million membership which it reached this month.  Another WebProNews columnist, Doug Caverly, notes that Linkedin’s number is still pretty impressive, considering its more select audience, and puts LinkedIn in the lead in its category.   More than 60 Million Americans listen to Internet radio weekly with four out of five (84%) listening to AM/FM streams and two out of three (62%) listening to Internet only radio stations.  Radio researcher Bridge Ratings says that people are listening more to AM/FM streams (2.5 hours per day) versus Internet only stations (1.4 hours), but that AM/ FM is in danger of losing that advantage because people expect more options online and not just a re-streaming of their over the air content.  Finally, a survey by Pew Research indicates that singles are happy being single with only 16% saying they are currently looking for a ‘romantic partner’ and half (49%) saying they had been on no more than one date in the past month.  The majority of American adults (56% or 113 Million people) say they are not in the dating game because they are either married or living as married but that still leaves a significant number (43% or 87 Million people) who say they are single.

      FOOTNOTE TO THE FUTURE:  As we so often do, we point out projects or innovative ideas that may point to what the future holds.  The latest of these is the WeMedia Awards being presented at the University of Miami next month.  The community choice poll winner of the Game Changer idea of the year goes to Tom Stites’ BanyanProject.com which uses Web-based journalism to engage everyday citizens (quote – people who are the bread and butter of American life) who are ill-served by mainstream journalism.  Other neat nominees include musician Peter Gabriel’s witness.org which uses witness video to “open the eyes of the world to human rights violations”; website seeclickfix.com which allows anyone to report and track community needs, like potholes that need filling; website newsy.com (which I subscribe to) and which labels itself a news analyzer, not an aggregator, by showing multiple reports from multiple sources on different topics; and Global Voices (globalvoicesonline.org) which “aggregates and curates” blogs from around the globe to provide a world-wide window.  You can find them all at the website wemedia.com. 

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Message from Michael -- Mobile World - February 15, 2010

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        February 15, 2010                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

      IT’S A MAD, MAD, MOBILE WORLD

      INTERNET HIGHWAY ROAD HOGS

      A GLOBAL MOBILE PERSPECTIVE

      A MESSAGE FROM CISCO

      GOOGLE BUZZ FOOTNOTE

      BRITAIN’S ANSWER TO JON STEWART

 

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      IT’S A MAD, MAD, MOBILE WORLD:  Mobile data traffic grew by more than 160% over the last year and is expected to double every year for the next four years, increasing 39 times between now and 2014.  That’s according to the annual Cisco Visual Networking Index report on mobile traffic growth.  And if that doesn’t stun you, think about this.  There were 1.13 Billion phones shipped worldwide last year, and that was actually down from the year before when it was 1.19 Billion phones, according to IDC’s worldwide mobile phone tracker.  To put that in perspective, keep in mind there’s an estimated 6.7 Billion men, women and children, total, in the world.  So a sixth of the world’s population got a new phone last year.  And, according to the Cisco report, two thirds (66%) of ALL mobile data traffic will be video by 2014.   That video growth is supported by the latest Nielsen A2M2 (Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement) report which says the mobile video audience grew 70% year to year while the online video audience grew 46%.  Nielsen makes the point that media multi-tasking is now a permanent part of the media consumption equation.  Again, though, by way of perspective, Nielsen notes that TV still accounts for 99% of all video viewing – specifically, 140 hours of video viewing on TV versus 27 hours of video viewing online and three hours on mobile devices.  That, in no way, diminishes the growing importance of mobile video.  As the Cisco report notes, mobile traffic translates into 3.6 Exabytes of data scurrying around the world every month. 

      INTERNET HIGHWAY ROAD HOGS.  Part of the reason for all that growth – smartphone adoption worldwide.  The average smartphone user generates 10 times the amount of traffic generated by the average non-smartphone user.  In terms of mobile data traffic, the laptop is the road hog, taking up 1300 times the amount of traffic as the average non-smartphone.  The latest addition to the mobile world – Picoprojectors used to project images and videos from a mobile device use 300 times the amount of data traffic as the average non-smartphone.  And those e-readers so many of you bought and got for Christmas?  Actually they only use twice as much data traffic as the non-smartphone.  But that’s not the least of it.  The report also notes the growth in “augmented reality” applications which use either the iPhone’s 3GS or the Android’s compass capabilities along with the camera and GPS capabilities to provide additional information about whatever restaurant, business or building you point the camera at.  If you want an example of this, do a search for Sekai Camera, and you will see an example.  Point the camera and you will get instant feedback, including directions, messages, reviews… all kinds of information overlaid on whatever you have on your screen.  Not only that, you can add your own information.   

      A GLOBAL MOBILE PERSPECTIVE.  Italians have more smart phones than anybody else in the world – more than a third (36%) of all their mobile phones are smartphones compared to just under a third (32%) for the U.S.  And smart phone use is expected to continue to grow faster in Italy, reaching two thirds (67%) of all use, compared to just over a half (55%) for the U.S. Why is that, don’t you wonder?  As long as you’re wondering about that, wonder about this.  South Africans make more use of the Mobile Internet (48.5%) at home than anybody else in the world – just under half (48.5%) compared to just over a third (37.6%) in the U.S.  India (at 45.9%) and the United Kingdom (at 45.6%) aren’t far behind South Africa.  The Chinese make greater use of the Mobile Internet at work than anybody else in the world, although only slightly more so – right at a third (32.7%) compared to Korea’s 31.7%, India’s 30.4% and America’s 19.6%.  The French make greater use of the Mobile Internet “on the go” than anybody else in the world, but again only slightly so – 45.2% compared to Mexico’s 44.2% and America’s 42.6%.  South Africans also have more Mobile Only Voice Access than anybody else in the world – nearly half (48%) compared to a quarter for America (25%) and India (24%) – which I find amazing having been to India several times and it seems everybody had mobiles.  The Italians (at 39%) and the Brazilians (at 35%) aren’t far behind the South Africans in Mobile Only Voice Access.  Western Europe (at 691 kbps) and Japan (at 690 kbps) are virtually tied in terms of Smartphone mobile speed – well ahead of the U.S. (at 418 kbps).  By the way, Finland’s Nokia is the world’s largest maker of cell phones, accounting for over a third (38.7%) of all cell phones sold worldwide, which is more than double Korea-based Samsung (18.1%) and four times Korea’s other cell phone company, LG (8.8%).  But here’s the one wonder to really wonder about.  In the Cisco report, outlining mobile data traffic growth by region, it includes – Outer Space which (I kid you not) accounts for 0.0006 Terabytes of data a month this past year but is expected to grow a whopping 284% to 0.2934 Terabytes by 2014. 

      A MESSAGE FROM CISCO.  You know, that doesn’t quite have the ring of a Message from Michael.  Regardless, the message in the Cisco report can be summed up in its long-term outlook headline:  Device Diversification and Ubiquitous Mobility.  As the report says, mobile voice service is already considered a necessity by many, and mobile data, video and TV services are “becoming an essential part of consumers’ lives.”  Mobile video adoption is expected to continue ‘unabated’ and with it, a need to increase backhaul capacity.  (A reminder – keep in mind the arguments in Washington about television spectrum being co-opted for broadband use.)  With the proliferation of devices, the Cisco report says they need to be connected seamlessly… and that applications and services will need to be shared to create “a highly enriched mobile broadband experience.”  The report says new partnerships, ecosystems and strategic consolidations are expected (probably should be changed to needed) because “operators must solve the challenge of effectively monetizing video traffic” in part because people will want a ‘wired experience’ from wireless technologies.    

      GOOGLE BUZZ FOOTNOTE.  Obviously this message is all about mobile, but as always, there are some things too important not to note.  The unveiling of Google’s answer to Facebook and Twitter  is one of those.  Like those, Buzz allows people to share updates, videos, photos, link and conversations.  But it goes beyond that, allowing people to pull images from links, play videos, flip through videos and share them either publicly or privately.  Also, it starts with a head start – it is part of the Gmail system which has 176 Million users, according to comScore.  By way of perspective, despite Google’s behemoth status, its Gmail actually trails Microsoft’s Hotmail which has 369 Million users and Yahoo Mail which has 304 Million users.  Add to that the other Google properties, such as Picasa, Google Reader and YouTube.  Depending on which review you read, it is a game changer… like the iPad; or it’s just a variation of what already exists… like the iPad.  Critics note Google’s past efforts with Orkut which caught on in Brazil but nowhere else, and Dodgeball which actually had to be shut down.  What may make this different, according to an analysis by Business Week and other publications, is Google’s foothold on advertising.

      BRITAIN’S ANSWER TO JON STEWART.  His name is Charlie Brooker, and his video showing “how to report the news” is making the rounds of media moguls, mavens and maniacs everywhere.   In fact, it was one of YouTube’s top-rated video with 750,000 views.  But that is only the start.  His screenwipe series covers everything from “a career in telly” to politicians in the media.  He is a columnist for The Guardian newspaper in the U.K., but also as one site put – a writer, satirist and grumpy television reviewer.  You can find his video’s on YouTube of course, although his ‘normal’ video home is the BBC Four.  So, recommendation of the week:  Carve out an hour of your precious time, go to YouTube, do a search for Charlie Brooker, and sit back and enjoy.     

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Message from Michael -- Super Bowl 2010

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        February 8, 2010                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

 

    THE SUPER BOWL SPECIAL EDITION

 

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      THE TRIPLE THREAT:  As everybody knows (or everybody who reads the message knows), the Super Bowl in its various permutations dominates the top 20 list of television viewing.  This year’s event is expected to add to that list.  But here is the factoid (and you know how I love factoids) that says it all.  Super Bowl viewing is three to four times larger than any other sporting event.  At nearly 100 Million viewers (specifically 98.7 Million for the 2009 game), that is more than three times the next highest sporting event which this year was…any guesses?  The BCS championship game between Alabama and Texas which at 30,776,000 beat out the next highest sport event which was...  Again, any guesses?  It was The NFL regular season game carried on Fox between the Vikings and the Packers which had 29,820,000 viewers. 

As the folks at Nielsen put it, with 43,700 hours of live sporting events in 2009, “we are living in an incredible time for sports consumption.”  And sports spending.  Nielsen says sports programming is “dvr-proof” and proof of that is that advertisers spent $7.6 Billion on sports programming this past year.  And the top advertising money maker?  Who else – the NFL which scored just under $1.5 Billion in ad dollars.

      TOP SCORING SPORTS:  Okay, let’s keep the guessing game going.  Super Bowl first, BCS championship game second, Vikings-Packers third.  What’s fourth?  Okay, proof that football is America’s favorite sport, it was the Cowboys-Giants game on NBC which scored 24,818,000 viewers which was roughly 800,000 ahead of the Rose Bowl game between Ohio State and Oregon (24,025,000).  Finally, in sixth place comes baseball with the World Series game between New York and Philadelphia on November 1^st which came in with a respectable 22,477,000 viewers.  Interestingly, unlike football, college basketball beats out professional basketball and pretty consistently.  For example, the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight games averaged a little over 9.5 Million viewers while the Western Conference and Eastern Conference games of just over 8.6 Million viewers.  In terms of single games, the NCAA championship game between the University of North Carolina and Michigan State pulled in 17,649,000 viewers compared with 15,957,000 viewers for the NBA playoff game between the L.A. Lakers and Orlando. 

In terms of single events, the MLB’s World Series game between the New York Yankees and Philadelphia pulled in 22,477,000 viewers, followed by the Daytona 500 with 15,958,000 viewers which trumped the Masters win by Angel Cordera which scored 14,303,000 viewers, well ahead of Y.E. Yang’s win of the PGA championship which had 10,079,000 viewers.  Somewhat of a surprise to me, the Stanley Cup game when Pittsburg faced Detroit at Detroit (at 7,992,000 viewers) beat out the Wimbledon Men’s Final between Federer and Roddick which had 5,706,000 viewers.  Interestingly though, the U.S. Open Men’s Final between del Potro and Federer (3,391,000) beat out the earlier Stanley Cup game when it was Detroit at Pittsburg (3,448,000).  Part of the reason for that is that the game was carried on Versus and cable pretty consistently underperforms network television.  As almost a footnote, the MLS Cup championship Soccer game scored an underwhelming 1,141,000 viewers.

      A MULTI-PLATFORM TOUCHDOWN.  All of these figures come from a Nielsen analysis titled The Changing Face of Sports Media which argues that sports is “perfectly suited” for the three-screen age.  Proof of that, an average of 81 Million people visited sports websites each month in the past year.  Let’s do the guessing game one more time.  Name the top sports site.  Give up?  It’s Yahoo Sports which averaged 28.5 Million unique visitors, well ahead of ESPN’s 21.5 Million.  But in that three-screen universe, ESPN wins the mobile side with 8.7 Million uniques compared to Yahoo Sports 2.8 Million.  In third place in site visits was Foxsports.com with 14 Million, followed by CBS Sports with 11.5 Million.  In an interesting twist, major league baseball (with 11.5 Million uniques) actually beats out the NFL’s site (9.9 Million).  MLB (2.687 Million) also beats out the NFL (2.606 Million), albeit barely, in mobile sites, as well as Fox Sports (2.6M) and the NBA (1.5 M).

Nielsen goes a step further and says that in this multi-platform world, viewers have one eye on the TV and one eye on their computer.  One in ten (12%) spent an average of 24 minutes doing both simultaneously.  And although as you would expect, much of that viewing is on sports sites (18%), most of the website viewing is on general interest portals (54%).  Web analyst comScore goes even further saying that a third (32%) log on during the game.  Three quarters of those surveyed (77%) logged on before the game and more than half (53%) logged on after the game.  But in keeping with the Nielsen findings, comScore found that nearly half (45%) said they would log on for “purposes unrelated to the Super Bowl.” 

      MONEY, MONEY, MONEY.  All right, let’s get to the important stuff – Ad Dollars.  As noted earlier, the NFL is the top money maker, but after that?  Any guesses?  Again, a bit of a surprise (to me at least) – Golf, which took in $565 Million in ad revenue which was well ahead of NCAA Football which brought in $425 Million, which I would note is less than a third what pro ball does.  The next big money pit is NASCAR which brought in a respectable $366 Million, most of which was on cable ($344 Million)  After that it’s Major League Baseball with $217 Million in ad revenue, but that barely beat out NCAA basketball which, with $214 Million in ad revenue, was well ahead of NBA basketball, with $174 Million in ad revenue. That, in turn, was well ahead of Tennis ($139 Million.)  Poor hockey was just that – poor, with just under $19 Million in ad revenue while the behemoth of the rest of the sporting world – Soccer, garnered a $5.4 Million.

      BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER.  Proof of that is which ad was the most popular.  According to USA Today’s Ad Meter analysis, it was the Snicker’s ad with Betty White and Abe Vigoda which scored an 8.68 on “likability.”  According to the website, fanhouse.com, which has a whole section devoted just to Super Bowl ads, it was the Punxsatawney Polamalu ad for Tru.TV.  And according to the NFL’s own website, the top ad (or, at least the most viewed ad) was the “Dorito’s Smack Commercial” as it was called in which the little boy smacks the guy.  The so-called Dorito Smack ad came in 11^th on the USA Today Ad Meter, but the Doritos ad with the dog with the bark collar actually took second place.  As everybody knows, (or at least everybody who reads the message) the top sports advertiser in the U.S. is Anheuser Busch which spent $245 Million last year on sports programs alone.  Although some reviewers contend that the beer making giant’s Super Bowl efforts didn’t match past years, the ad featuring the man who builds his house out of cans of Bud Light came in third in the USA Today report, just ahead of the Clydesdale friend ad, which came in third in the fanhouse.com report.

      THE NOSTALGIA BOWL.  That’s how the New York Times labeled the ad wars in the Super Bowl.  On top of Betty White and Abe Vigoda, there was Don Rickles, Chevy Chase, along with what the newspaper called “vintage athletes” – Lance Armstrong, Charles Barkley and Brett Favre.  And the Times article didn’t even mention Flo TV’s ad which showed scenes from I Love Lucy and MTV, along with the lunar landing and the Berlin Wall.  One of the more interesting advertising debates surrounding the Super Bowl was the fact that new media maven Google actually had a Television Ad, which got good reviews for its simple message of how the search engine is so integrated into people’s lives.  And proof that YouTube folks aren’t quite as smart as we sometimes think, their vaunted “ad blitz” campaign of most popular ads doesn’t have any scores and apparently won’t have until February 15^th – about a week after anybody cares.  That’s the kind of ‘dumbness’ you might expect from a website claiming to be devoted to Super Bowl commercials but which (no kidding) is created by ‘expats’ in Hong Kong.  (All right, opinion on my part, but still true.)

      SUPER BOWL COCKTAIL CHATTER.  You already know the cost of a spot (roughly $2.8 Million) and you probably also knew, or suspected, that Super Bowl advertisers see a significant jump in Web traffic (24%) after the game.  But, according to Nielsen figures based on last year’s game, the Super Bowl is the 8^th largest beer-selling event.  (It doesn’t say what the top seven are.)  Potato chips are the snack of choice, but tortilla chips are quickly gaining.  NFL fans are more likely to own hi-tech electronic items than the average adult, are more likely to be physically active than the average American, slightly more likely to have higher education and higher income, and they’re also more likely (by 74%) to spend money on skin care products.  As one might expect, men are more likely to watch the game (45.8 Million in 2009) but women aren’t that far behind (37.7 Million).           

      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.