Message from Michael - Privacy vs Personalization - November 30, 2010

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        November 30, 2010                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

      PRIVACY VERSUS PERSONALIZATION

      I READ THE NEWS TODAY, OH BOY

      BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID

      LOST IN SPACE

      COCKTAIL CHATTER – VIRTUAL DIVA

 

 

      PRIVACY VERSUS PERSONALIZATION:  It may be “THE” issue of the coming decade for new media.  How do you balance the two.  Two federal agencies are expected to issue two separate reports, or recommendations.  The Federal Trade Commission report is expected to come down on the side of consumers; The U.S. Commerce Department report is expected to come down on the side of business.  President Barrack Obama is expected to appoint a “privacy Czar.”  The European Commission is overhauling its ‘data protection rules’ for consumers after concerns were raised about Facebook and Google and because of social networking growth and “personalized advertising.”  The Federal Trade Commission recently closed its investigation into Google’s Street View system that raised concerns in Europe and, in particular, Germany.  Facebook faces accusations from a variety of groups that it turned ‘data-mined information’ to advertisers.  At the recent Web 2.0 conference, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg called privacy “a grey area… (and) not completely a black-and-white thing.” 

TWO INCIDENTS – ONE QUESTION:  You’ve all had the experience of going to a website and getting a pop-up that locates you in your town.  Something like, “hi, Michael, here are some things in Athens.”  And, no, I wasn’t using any of the location-based social networking sites like Gowalla or FourSquare.  And, yes, we understand that our IP address identifies our location.  But how about this?   A friend of mine, Al H., sent an article about fake news to some of his friends.  He didn’t send it to me, but I know about it anyway.  Another colleague, Jim S., sent out an article about the Dead Sea Scrolls.  He didn’t send it to me, but I know about it as well.  Why?  Because I went to The Washington Post website to read an article, and there on the right hand side of the page was a list of all my “friends’ activities” – articles from the Post website that they had shared with others.  I e-mail Al regularly.  I haven’t e-mailed Jim in months.  As for Terra, (no, I didn’t mention her, but she came up as well) I have not communicated with her in years.  Yet, the Post website tells me what they’re doing on its website. 

PERSONAL ANECDOTES:  Are a debatable form of evidence, but here is a more concrete incident:  British insurer Aviva decided to take a different approach to deciding whether 60,000 life insurance applicants at its U.S. subsidiary were a ‘suitable risk.’  Instead of the usual questionnaires and medical tests , the company used a ‘predictive modeling’ formula based on people’s ‘consumer marketing data’, such as magazine subscriptions, shopping details, catalog purchases, leisure activities indicated by online activity, and, of course, social networking site information.  The results, according to the report in The Wall Street Journal, were “persuasive in its ability to mimic traditional techniques.”  Or, put another way, there is enough online information for insurers to figure out your lifestyle, habits, all that says about you and whether you’re a good insurance risk.  Somewhat disconcerting, a spokesman for my own insurance company, USAA Life Insurance, which is one of the more conservative insurance companies in America, said the “methodology is sound.”  The insurance company (ies) are careful to say the data isn’t being used for a final decision (in brackets – yet), but only as a filter. 

As one insurance consultant put it, people need to realize that “they are significantly increasing their personal transparency… (and that) it’s all public and it’s all electronically mineable.”  The point is that every time you go online, you leave behind ‘digital bread crumbs,’ some intentional, some unintentional.  When it’s intentional, it’s personalization; When it’s unintentional it’s a potential portal to your privacy.  But in either case they lead back to you.  And that ends today’s editorial.  Now, on to the news.

      I READ THE NEWS TODAY, OH BOY:   And who better to talk about 400 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire, than Twitter.  Several media websites and services are speculating (or reporting, depending on how you look at it) that the microblogging site, which has been cited as a source in several major news stories, is looking at a ‘Twitter News Service.’  Twitter co-founder Biz Stone told Reuters about the idea of a ‘partnership’ with news organizations, only to have the ‘official’ Twitter spokes-person later say he was just being imaginative.  Part of the ‘speculation’ came from the Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford conference in which Stone also raised the question and where he also said that the service, valued at $1 Billion, was not for sale for $4 Billion or $5 Billion.  Several sites also note Twitter’s own blog two years ago about the Los Angeles earthquake in which it was four minutes ahead of the local television news station and nine minutes ahead of Associated Press.  In that same blog, Twitter referred to itself as a “personal news service.”  Faithful Message readers can probably cite several other instances – from Mumbai to Haiti to Iran -- in which Twitter tweets played a key role.  As a footnote to this, it should be pointed out that Twitter-ites’ (Yes, I just made up the name) refer to the service as an ‘information network’ not a ‘social network’… for what that’s worth.

      BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID:  All you traditional news media companies.  Yahoo is coming to get you… with an army of 400,000 ‘contributors.’  In May of this year, Yahoo bought Associated Content, a ‘custom content’ provider for $100 Million.  Regular readers will remember previous Messages about so-called custom content, or custom publishing, or what some critics derisively call ‘content farms’ in which content is created primarily as a driver for advertising.  Now, Yahoo will act as the coordinator of all such content and the contributors, to produce material for its various websites and partner websites.  As the headline in Advertising Age succinctly put it, “Yahoo cranks up Content Machine.”  And a content machine it is.  The other two major custom content groups are Demand Media and Examiner.  Coincidentally, and, depending on your point of view, another reason to be afraid, another article in Advertising Age, tells the story of a former assistant at a car dealership who turned to writing for Examiner after being laid off.  She reportedly made $100,000 in the past year.  Pretty remarkable under any circumstances, but especially with the content farms which pay an upfront fee of anywhere from $2 to $50 per article with an additional $1 to $5 for every additional thousand page views generated.  The secret to her success?  Writing about celebrities like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift, along with Dancing with the Stars, and DisneyLand.  As a ‘positive’ aside to this, search giant Google is planning to introduce a ‘source tag’ system into its search engine so that the original URL, or originating source, of an article can be properly cited.   As a PS, I always wondered where the phrase in the headline comes from.  The answer is the movie, The Fly, with Jeff Goldblum.

      LOST IN SPACE:  It was only 18 minutes, but for that brief time earlier this year, one-seventh of the entire world Internet traffic, including major U.S. corporations and U.S. government agencies, was re-routed through China, according to a China-US technology group and MIT’s Technology Review.  Experts still debate whether it was intentional or unintentional – an accidental ‘hijacking.’  China’s state-owned ISP, China Telecom, says it was an accident:  a quirk caused by a small Chinese ISP updating its routing information.  Regular readers of the Message will remember a similar incident two years ago in which Pakistan’s state-owned telecommunications company managed to take YouTube off the entire world wide web for two solid hours on a Sunday afternoon.  Again, there is the question whether it was intentional or unintentional.   

      COCKTAIL CHATTER: Three state schools in Britain are outsourcing the teaching of math to India.  According to an article in the technology section of The New York Times, London-based Brightspark Education started the outsourcing program using 100 teachers in the Punjab as an alternative to private tutors, allowing the students to go online to get their lessons.  The reason?  Of course, it’s cheaper.  Look out, Lady Gaga.  The latest pop sensation is a 3-dimensional hologram that packs the concert halls in Japan.  Robot and Artificial Intelligence website SingularityHub.com reports that Hatsune Miku is the creation of  Crypton Future Media and uses vocal synthesis software and visual projection to put the ‘virtual diva’ on stage, backed up by a real-life band. You can see her perform (where else) on YouTube.  Click on the “World Is Mine” video which actually shows her in concert.     

      SUBSCRIPTIONS:  We encourage people to pass on copies of Message from Michael.  But if you would like to get your own copy, you can subscribe by sending an e-mail to Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.  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 -- Google vs Facebook - November 17, 2010

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        November 17, 2010                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

      THE GIANT GOOGLE FACEBOOK FACE-OFF

      IN MY MIND I’M GOING TO CAROLINA

      CURSE YOU, RED BARON

      COCKTAIL CHATTER – 1 AND 2

 

 

      THE GIANT GOOGLE FACEBOOK FACE-OFF:  So, every techie from India to Indiana has written about Facebook’s’ new messaging system, and normally that means we don’t want to rehash old news on the Message, but this is just way too important to ignore.  However, we will try and keep it brief and, maybe even, add a little perspective.  For starters, even though it was called the “G-Mail killer” in its development stage, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is careful to call it messaging, not e-mail.  The Facebook system integrates private messages, text chats, all your SMS and, yes, e-mail, in one place, with the history of all your communication.  What G-Mail calls message threads.  And, oh, yes, there is no subject line in the communication.  The ‘subject’ is the conversation.  Yeah, I’m still trying to wrap my brain around that one.  Anyway, some numbers:  As we all know, Facebook has more than 500 Million users.  Google’s G-Mail has 170 Million users.  And MySpace (remember them?) has 140 Million users.  Lost in the Facebook announcement brouhaha is AOL’s announcement that it has upgraded its messaging service (notice, not just e-mail) to integrate all your e-mail from all your accounts into one, with the addition of multi-media.  The last numbers I could find for AOL e-mail users was 37 Million.  It should also be noted that Google did try something similar, bringing all of the email, messaging, documents, etc., under one umbrella.  It was called Google Wave and it crashed onto the shore of reality.  In the same reality vein, it should be noted that Gartner Research says social networking is rapidly overtaking e-mail as the number one activity on the Internet.  Of course, Facebook says its new messaging system is sort of a social networking-messaging kind of thing.  A background note on this rivalry between the two Internet giants.  Not long before the Facebook announcement, Google started blocking other services from importing email contact info, unless it was reciprocal.  At this point, Facebook is introducing its new messaging service through invitation.  And, yes, I have filed an invitation request.

      IN MY MIND I’M GOING TO CAROLINA:  Apparently Google and Facebook agree on something – James Taylor’s love of Carolina.  Both companies (along with Apple) have built, or are building, massive data centers in western North Carolina.  The key word in all this is – massive.  Facebook reports that it gets more than 100 Million new photos every day and ‘shares’ more than 30 Billion pieces of content every month.  Google-owned YouTube reports that it gets a staggering 35 HOURS of video uploaded every MINUTE.  As a report in Marketing Vox noted, that’s the equivalent of 176-thousand full-length Hollywood releases every week.  Or put in even more startling terms, if the three major broadcast networks broadcast 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year every year for the last 60 years, they still wouldn’t have broadcast as much content as is uploaded to YouTube every month.  (You have to love that factoid.)  As Media Post writer-reporter Erik Sass (who is one of the few online writers worth following) notes, the sheer size of the Facebook facility is testimony to the impact of social media.  Facebook’s two facilities will cover more than 607-thousand square feet.  Overall, he reports, the number of servers in the U.S. has increased from 2.6 Million in 1997, to 5.6 Million in 2003, to 11.8 Million in 2007, to 17 Million in 2009.  Do you see a pattern there?  Another great factoid:  All the data centers in the U.S.A. consume  more than 5,000 Megawatts of power every year at a cost of $18.5 Billion – “enough to power five million homes, the same amount consumed by the state of Mississippi.”   

Further Factoids:  YouTube has crossed the Rubicon of online subscriptions – One Billion, according to a blog post by its marketing manager George Haddad.  As reported by WebPro News, the channel that took YouTube over the Billion mark was MachinimaSports which, when I checked it, only gets a few thousand views per video, but apparently has a lot of sports videos.  The WebPro News report noted that there are actually 15 sites that have more than a Million subscribers, including some that you may be familiar with from previous Messages (realannoyingorange, fred, smosh, collegehumor, failblog) and some you may not (nigahiga, kassemg, sxephil, kevjumba.)  Meanwhile, comScore’s VideoMetrix report says that all Google sites (which is mainly YouTube) scored more than Two Billion video views and more than 146 Billion unique visitors last month.  Yahoo took second place with 233 Million views and nearly 54 Million viewers, followed by Viacom Digital (176 Million views and 53 Million viewers); relative newcomer Vevo (236 Million views and 47 Million viewers); and then Facebook (162 Million views and 47 Million viewers.)

      CURSE YOU, RED BARON:  Apparently Snoopy wouldn’t fit in today’s modern media world with his circumscribed lamentations about his fearless foe.  The Parents Television Council says that the use of profanities has increased by two thirds (69.3%) in the last five years, but even more troubling, they say, is the type of profanity used which they describe as ‘harsher.’  In a report with the overly-cutesy title of “habitat for profanity,” the council calls the ruling earlier this year by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on ‘fleeting expletives’ a “castration (their word) of the FCC’s powers of enforcement.”  Interestingly, the report says the worst offender was the plaintiff in the case – Fox where the use of profanity nearly tripled (269% to 292%) in the five year period.  The other networks were dramatically lower.  The report says the biggest increase in the use of profanities came in the so-called ‘family hour’ of 8 p.m., followed by 9 p.m.  For example, the report says instances of the F-word being used but bleeped in the 8 p.m. hour increases 1,010%, from 10 in 2005 to 111 in 2010.  Use of euphemisms for the F-word increased 160%, from 5 in 2005 to 13 in 2010.  In the 9 p.m. hour, use of the bleeped F-word jumped 15,500%, from just once, according to the report, in 2005 to 156 times in 2010.  Euphemisms for the word in 9 p.m. only increased 10% from 10 in 2005 to 11 in 2010.

      COCKTAIL CHATTER #1:  China recently announced that its Supercomputer, the Tianhe 1, is the world’s fastest, but MIT’s Technology Review says that is only technically true.  Let me see if I can explain this.  You see, in tech talk, computer speed is measured in FLOPS (Floating point OPerations per Second) – what you and I would call…. Calculations.  The Tianhe 1 achieved the incredible speed of 2.57 petaflops.  A peta is 10 to the 15^th power.  Or put in simpler terms – more than a Quadrillion calculations a second.  The Tech Review article says that while the Chinese computer can reach that speed, it can’t sustain that speed because of the kind of processors and graphics it uses. And that is why it’s only technically correct.  On top of that, a group of scientists who maintain a website tracking the world’s fastest supercomputers says there are five other supercomputers coming online in the upcoming year that will beat the Tianhe 1, including ones at the University of Illinois and at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.  Yes, there really is a site that just tracks the world’s supercomputers.  It’s unimaginatively called top500.org.  On the other end of the technology scale, there really is a website called Treehugger, and it reports that a firm in Austria has built the world’s tallest office building of… wood.  The 30-story high-rise tower in Dornbin does have a skeleton post and beam construction including timber and concrete, but the rest is a laminated wood product.   

      COCKTAIL CHATTER #2: The longest running comedy in television history is getting longer. Fox has renewed The Simpsons for a 23^rd season, which you probably already know, but the reason it’s in cocktail chatter is that one television observer noted that the extension means that Bart Simpson will be 33 years old… technically speaking.  And more from the MIPCOM “global entertainment content industry” conference which attracted 12,400 people from 100 countries. Russia’s Red Media Group has acquired the Food Networks’ Fresh with Anna Olson and Cinemax’s Forbidden Science, which for those unfamiliar with it (like me) is about “a world in which people fulfill erotic desires with androids.”  Russia’s First HDTV picked up Motorhead Traveler in which a guy travels around the world; MxCulture, a ‘behind the scenes’ look at the sport of Motocross; and Sledsense, a snowmobile sports adventure show.  The MIPCOM summary report noted that a lot of the focus was on emerging markets.  For example, Cineflex International reported business “from China to Chile” for its Nazi hunter series.  Lastly, on the television front, a San Diego County Superior Court judge, DeAnn Salcido, who ran what was described as a “colorful courtroom” apparently in hopes of becoming a judge on a reality TV show, has resigned after a judicial panel cited 39 instances of misconduct on the bench.

      SUBSCRIPTIONS:  We encourage people to pass on copies of Message from Michael.  But if you would like to get your own copy, you can subscribe by sending an e-mail to Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.  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 - News Source Use - November 10, 2010

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        November 10, 2010                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

      IF YOU TORTURE THE NUMBERS LONG ENOUGH

      NEWSPAPERS VERSUS TELEVISION

      NEW HAMPSHIRE ON MY MIND

      THE FACEBOOK WITCHING HOUR

      IF I WERE A RICH MAN

 

 

      IF YOU TORTURE THE NUMBERS LONG ENOUGH:  As the saying goes, they will admit to anything.  That phrase comes to mind after reading the 247WallSt./ Harris Interactive poll on news and media consumption.  The release by Harris Interactive argues that “traditional media is in trouble.”  The release by 24/7 Wall St goes even further, declaring that the conventional wisdom that “the print industry is dead” is correct.  I was even tempted to resurrect an old satiric headline – STTYWYAK (Stee-We-Ak) – which stands for Studies That Tell You What You Already Know.  But the numbers don’t quite support those conclusions.    While nearly half (43%) say the day of the printed newspaper is gone, four-fifths (81%) say that, while newspapers will continue to decline, there will always be a need for newspapers.  More than half (55%) either ‘strongly agree’ or ‘somewhat agree’ that traditional media as we know it will no longer exist in ten years; But two thirds (67%) say they prefer to get their news in more traditional ways, through either television, newspapers or magazines.  Before you say, ‘ah, yes, Michael, but the younger people…” Well, no, it isn’t significantly different for them.  A few more (47% of the 18-34 demographic versus 43% of the general online population) say the day of the printed newspaper is gone; Only slightly less (76% versus 81%) of the 18-34 year olds say there will always be a need for newspapers in print.  But only slightly fewer (51% versus 55%) of the 18 to 34 year olds believe traditional media will no longer exist in ten years.  (By the way, aren’t you glad I didn’t use the Mark Twain quote that reports of my death are greatly exaggerated, which is so over-used, for the headline.)

It is significant that fewer (57% versus 67%) of the younger demo say they prefer to get their news in more traditional ways.  That becomes even more significant when you look at the question about getting “almost all my news online.” Two thirds (65%) of the younger demographic say that’s true of them while only half (50%) of the general online population say that’s true of them.  But then again, when asked how often they go to different news sources when looking for news, the number one choice is….. local television news, with three-quarters (76%) of the general online population saying they go to local TV ‘all the time’ or ‘occasionally’ and two-thirds ( 63%) of the 18-34 demographic picking local TV.  Local newspapers came in second in BOTH groups, with two thirds of the general population picking newspapers and more than half (56%) of the 18 to 34 year olds.  Very interestingly (to me at least) “websites that aggregate different news sources” came in fifth for both groups (49% for overall and 52% for 18-34.)

OBSERVATIONS: None of this diminishes the basic point of the report about the changes in media consumption habits.  If anything it validates (in my mind, at least) the point made in a previously reported Pew News Consumption study that much of the younger people’s news consumption comes through grazing.  They seem to ‘stumble’ on to news rather than specifically looking for news.  I say that because of the way the question is worded:  “when you are looking for news, how often do you go to each of these news sources.”  That may explain why news aggregation sites came in fifth.  It should also be noted that when asked about the amount of time spent on the various media, consistently more than half say it has not changed.  Visiting online news and information sites did indeed show the greatest increase for the overall population(28%); Interestingly enough, that was roughly the same for the 18-34 year olds (29%).  Actually it was the 35-44 demographic that showed the greatest increase in online news usage (34%).  That same demographic also had the highest percentage (59%) going to news aggregation sites. 

Lastly, a disclaimer: The Harris poll relies on an online panel of people who have agreed to take these surveys.  That may explain why, when you read the fine print (known as the methodology) Harris Interactive says they avoid the words “margin of error” because, they say, all surveys and polls are subject to multiple sources of error which are hard to quantify.  Or, as one of the leading researchers here at the Grady College of Journalism put it, that just means in today’s technological environment, the results are still basically a SWAG – Scientific Wild Assed Guess.           

      NEWSPAPERS VERSUS TELEVISION:  Somewhat related to the above article, I give you two sets of numbers.  Numbers recently released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations show the circulation for the top 25 newspapers continues to drop.  Only one newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, showed an increase and it was a meager one – 1.82%.  With a circulation of 2,061,142, it is the nation’s most popular newspaper, ahead of USA Today with 1,830,594 (down 3.66%) and The New York Times which had a circulation of 876,638 (down 5.52%).  By way of comparison, and yes it’s probably unfair, for the week of October 25, NBC’s nightly news cast averaged 8.06 Million viewers, ABC had 7.4 Million and CBS had 5.5 Million.  In any case, back to the newspaper top ten list, it’s Los Angeles Times (600K), The Washington Post (545K), New York Daily News (512K), New York Post (501K), Chicago Tribune (441K), the Houston Chronicle (344K) and The Philadelphia Inquirer (342K).

      THE FACEBOOK WITCHING HOUR:  According to a report by social media management firm Vitrue, the best time to post on Facebook is 3 p.m. on Wednesday.  Seriously.  Of course it’s a little more complicated than that.  After analyzing two months of Facebook traffic, including 1.6 Million posts and 7.6 Million comments, the researchers say there are three peak periods during the day:  11 a.m., 3p.m., and 8 p.m. EST.  And let me emphasize, that’s during the work day.  The authors speculate that the 3 p.m. activity is a combination of factors, including lunch time on the west coast, break time on the east coast, and kids coming home from school.  In a similar vein, 11 a.m. could be a combination of the start of the work day on the west coast and the break before lunch on the east coast. Then, for whatever reason, on Wednesday, there are more interactions than any other day of the week. It just beats Tuesday (by 7%) and Thursday (11%).  Weekends, not too surprisingly, are the lowest.  The report makes an important distinction between posts and comments.  For example, Monday is actually the biggest day for postings (286,000) followed by Tuesday (252K), Wednesday (248K), Thursday (234K) and Friday (230K).  Sunday came in next (203K), with Saturday last (184K).  But people were in a more ‘talkative’ mood on Wednesday, which had the most comments (1.528 Million), followed by Tuesday(1.414 M), Thursday (1.371 M), Friday (1.322 M) and Monday (1.214 M).  Oddly, Saturday generated more comments (841 K) than Sunday (799 K).  The report titled Facebook Management makes the point that the combination of posting, commenting, liking and sharing is part of a two-way conversation and that it’s all about engagement.  In case you have any questions about the importance of Facebook use, the report quotes the Alexa research group which says Facebook reaches a third (35%) of all Internet users on any given day with the average user spending 55 minutes a day on the social networking site.             

      NEW HAMPSHIRE ON MY MIND:  The “granite state” has the distinction of having the highest Internet penetration in the United States with nine out of ten residents (90.1%) having Internet connection.  That is only slightly higher than the other top five: New Jersey (87.8%), Utah (87.6%), Connecticut (86.5%) and Massachusetts (86.2%).  According to Internet World Stats, the U.S. average is 77.3% and that is three times the average for the rest of the world (26.5%). Facebook use in the U.S. is seven times (43%) the rest of the world (5.9%).  Less than half of the 1.2 Million New Hampshirites are on Facebook (44.5%), although that is slightly higher than the U.S. average.  The state with the lowest Internet penetration is Mississippi (59.3%), although oddly that doesn’t translate into the lowest Facebook penetration (30.3%).  That distinction goes to West Virginia (28.7%) even though it has a much higher Internet penetration (70.5%).  Not surprisingly, as America’s most populous state, California had the highest number of Internet users (29.8 Million) although its Internet penetration rate was only slightly above average (79.7%).  The second most populous state, Texas, had the second highest number of Internet users (17.2 Million) although its Internet penetration was well below average (68.6%).  And just to keep the world balance to my message, Advertising Age reports that there were 384 Million Chinese online in 2009, up 29% from 2008; and 223 Million mobile Internet users.  Writer Abbey Klaasen notes that for every Internet service in the U.S., there is a Chinese equivalent.  For Facebook, it’s RenRen and Kaixin; for Foursquare it’s Jiapang; for Twitter, it’s Sina’s Weibo; for Zynga’s Farmville, it’s  Kaixin’s Happy Farm.  And as mentioned in a previous message, the Chinese instant messaging service is QQ which was created by the growing Internet firm, Tencent.

      IF I WERE A RICH MAN:  No, no, it’s not Tevye, and I don’t know if he has to work hard, but Rush Limbaugh is the top money maker amongst political pundits, according to Newsweek and a research firm called Wealth X, pulling in $58.7 Million.  Eat your heart out, Katie Couric.  Far back in second place is Glenn Beck with a mere $33 Million, followed by Sean Hannity ($22M), Bill O’Reilly ($20 M), Jon Stewart ($15 M), Sarah Palin ($14 M), Don Imus ($11 M), Bill Clinton ($7.7M), Keith Olbermann ($7.5 M) and at number ten, Rudy Giuliani ($7 M).  Stewart cohort Stephen Colbert tied at #13 with $5 Million.  The rest are the ‘usual suspects’ –Bill Maher ($4 M), Joe Scarborough ($3.5 M), Bob Woodward ($2.5 M).  I shouldn’t probably admit this, but there were quite a few Millionaire pundits I didn’t recognize, including: Jorge Ramos, the Mexican news anchor for Noticiero Univision, although there is another news anchor for Telemundo, New York with the same name; Fareed Zakaria, who hosts CNN’s foreign affairs show and is Editor-at-Large of Time magazine; Bob Barnett who I suspect is the Washington lawyer and political strategist and not the wrestler; and Eduardo “Piolin” Sotelo, a Mexican radio personality who hosts a morning radio talk show in Los Angeles. 

      SUBSCRIPTIONS:  We encourage people to pass on copies of Message from Michael.  But if you would like to get your own copy, you can subscribe by sending an e-mail to Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.  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.