OVERVIEW: It was the year of micro-blogging site Twitter and an attack on Mumbai, India’s financial center, in which ‘twitterers’ did much of the reporting; the rise of social networking and the rise of America’s first African-American president through the use of social networking; a surge in the use of online video and along with it a surge in video providers like Hulu. And before this gets too esoteric for all of you, a little back to planet earth moment – Yahoo’s number one search item in 2008 was the same one as a year ago in 2007 – BRITNEY SPEARS. As website TechCrunch put it, maybe it’s a train wreck kind of thing. The number two most searched item was…. WWE, and for those not familiar – that’s World Wrestling Entertainment, which, BTW, was also #2 in 2007. Barack Obama came in third. Anyway, on to this slightly longer than usual review in which we give you a snapshot of 2008.
MAN IS A SOCIAL ANIMAL: Philosopher Aristotle would have found proof of that in 2008 as social networks metastasized around the world. The poster child of social networking is the not-even-two-years-old (March, 2006) micro-blogging site Twitter which, as Technology Review put it, has “spawned an ecosystem of competitors, knock-offs, plug-ins and add-ons.” Of course the giants are Facebook and MySpace with more than 100 Million unique users each month, but there are plenty of would-be giant killers out there as well. How about badoo and bebo, which both claim a worldwide focus; fark (talking about news that isn’t news) and newsvine (talking about news that people are talking about); iambored (which, well… you can guess); gather (for the NPR crowd) and habbo (for the teenagers). As fast as the Internet audience is growing (11% a year, according to comScore), social networking sites are growing even faster (25%) with some lesser known sites (hi5, Mixx and Yelp) growing faster still, according to web analysis site ignitesocialmedia.com.
And I’ve just been talking about the English sites so far. According to Google’s end of year Zeitgeist report which looks at the fastest growing search items in the U.S., and world, three of the top ten search items were Tuenti (a Spanish social networking site), Nasza Klasa (a Polish site) and Wer Kennt Wen (a German site). That may explain that while social networking site growth in the U.S. is a modest 9%, it is nearly triple that worldwide, at 25%. Here’s the fact that says a lot -- Of the nearly 861 Million Internet cited by comScore, two thirds (581 Million) are on social networking sites. There is even a website, ning.com, where you can create your own social network. Founders Gina Bianchini and Marc Andreesen were named to Fast Company’s list of the 12 most creative minds of 2008.
As a FOOTNOTE to all this, let me apologize to the numerous people who’ve invited me to join Plaxo, Pulse, Pownce and other social networking sites. I’m already on half a dozen and I can’t keep up with them.
MAN IS A POLITICAL ANIMAL: So says our good buddy Aristotle. In fact that was the original translation, until someone decided that politikos in Greek more closely translated to social in English than political. Anyway, I digress. In its end of the year review of searches, Yahoo! said it was “politics as unusual” that dominated much of the year’s search with political debates replacing the ‘rubbernecking at the scene of celebrity train wrecks” as a prime activity. (Isn’t it interesting that the train wreck analogy was used again?) Right up there with the celebrity searches were searches for Barack Obama, and most particularly, Sara Palin who made #4 on Ask.com’s list of ‘top celebrity baby mamas of 2008’, just behind Angelina Jolie, Jessica Alba and Jamie Lynn Spears. Also on the political search hit list was the Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s favorite word, ‘maverick’ which topped the Dictionary.com list of top gainers, just ahead of socialism. The word also made Google’s list of campaign ‘buzzwords’ just behind Joe the Plumber and Jeremiah Wright. As a side note, the Google list of top sources for political news included SNL… as in Saturday Night Live, for what Google called its “up-to-the-minute spoofs of the campaign.”
As a FOOTNOTE, you may recall that the Pew Research Center survey showed that the Internet had emerged this year as the leading source for political and campaign news this year. In its latest report just released, the folks at Pew say the Internet has now officially taken the lead over newspapers as the main source of national and international news with two out of five (40%) saying they get most of such news from the Internet compared to a third (35%) who cite newspapers. Television is still the dominant source of such news at 70%, but in the under-30 crowd it’s a dead heat (59% to 59%).
And as a Footnote to the Footnote, the Pew report shows that three of the top 15 news stories followed “very closely” were political stories, the same number as natural disasters (Hurricanes Ike and Gustav and flooding in the Midwest), but way behind the eight stories about the economy which dominated the top 15 selections. And dominated not just by numbers but by percentages with 70% saying they followed the U.S. economy stories ‘very closely.’
ONLINE VIDEO: No cute headline here. Just one basic fact from a previous MfM, quoting a New York Times article. YouTube alone consumed as much bandwidth last year as ALL providers did in the year 2000. And from another one – founder Chad Hurley says that YouTube receives more than ten hours of video every minute on its site. And the latest figures I saw, show YouTube averaging just over 5.3 Billion video streams a month. Add to that the Hulu’s, Yahoo’s, Joost’s, Veoh’s, Blinkxx’s, Flickr’s and so on and so on… and you get the picture. As a side note, Nielsen’s Three Screen Report makes the point that the average user spends 142 hours and 29 minutes watching TV in the home compared to two hours and 31 minutes watching video on the Internet BUT while there were 282 Million people watching TV in the home, there was a substantial 120 Million people watching video on the Internet. And as a side note to the side note, I should reference TVWeek’s Daisey Whitney’s ‘experiment’ in which she relied solely on the Internet for her video needs and, in the words of Maxwell Smart, loved every minute of it.
I WANT PLAYERS WHO ARE AGILE, MOBILE AND HOSTILE. Famed Alabama coach Bear Bryant said that about his players and now media mavens are saying that may apply to mobile video. Here is the interesting factoid from the Nielsen Three Screen report. Mobile subscribers with video capability actually spent more time watching video on their mobile devices than people spent watching video online – 3 hours and 37 minutes on a mobile phone versus 2 hours and 31 minutes watching video on the Internet. Again, that applies only to mobile subscribers, but it’s still interesting. Much of that mobile interactivity can be attributed to the growth of the iPhone and its various knock-off and copy cat versions, according to those same media mavens. But, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, anyone expecting 2008, or 2009 for that matter, to be the “year of the mobile” is mistaken. Another “but” – But by the year 2020, according to its survey of Internet experts, “the combination of portability and relative affordability will turn the cell phone into the leading Internet gateway.” The report, Future of the Internet III, says there will be about 4 Billion cell phones worldwide by the end of 2008, with up to 15% of them ‘Internet enabled.’ The report’s best quote comes from Susan Crawford, founder of OneWebDay, who says they will no longer be ‘cell phones’ but “simply lenses on the online world.”
I WANT MY STV: Replace the M with S, for sports, and you have a better picture of the most popular one-time telecasts in 2008. In fact you could make the letter an F – for Football. Five of the top ten telecasts were the Superbowl (43% of the audience) and post bowl coverage, along with the NFC playoff and championship and the AFC divisional playoff game. Four others were the Olympics which hovered around 18%. The one ringer? Can you guess? The Academy Awards (18.7).
More interesting for what it tells you is Nielsen’s list of the top ten “timeshifted” primetime TV programs. Topping the list was NBC favorite Heroes which gained an extra 35% in viewership when the 7-day viewing was added to the live ratings. It was followed by Fringe (26%), Lost (25%), Bones (21%), Grey’s Anatomy (20%), House (18%), Survivor: Gabon (18%), American Idol – Tuesday (13%), The Mentalist (13%) and American Idol – Wednesday (12%). Even more interesting (as I always say, at least to me) only four of the programs made Nielsen’s top ten for regularly scheduled programs: both American Idols (with a 15.5 and 15.3 rating), The Mentalist with a 10 rating and Survivor with a 7.6 rating, based on Live and ‘same day timeshifted’ viewing.
As a Footnote, American viewing of television increased yet again in 2008, another four minutes per household to 8 hours and 18 minutes a day, says Nielsen.
YOU ARE WHAT YOU READ: At least some people seem to believe that and if it’s true the theme for 2008 is that we are all looking for a greater purpose in life. That seems to be the message looking at the top seller list of non-fiction books from Nielsen. Self-described spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle claims two of the top spots with his books A New Earth and The Power of Now, which promise to help awaken you to your life’s purpose through “transcending our ego-based state of consciousness.” Now, admittedly President-elect Barack Obama also scored two books on the non-fiction list, but when you look at the other books, there is a clear theme. The book The Secret which we’ve mentioned in previous MfM’s promises to transform your weakness and suffering into strength and health using ‘secrets’ discovered by sages and seers. The book Three Cups of Tea looks at one man’s journey to “promote peace with books, not bombs” building schools in Afghanistan. And, of course, Randy Pausch’s book The Last Lecture (also mentioned in a previous MfM) is an inspirational look at life and living by the professor who died of cancer at an early age.
Just for the record, none of the best selling books made either of the lists of best books of 2008 compiled by Time Magazine and The New York Times. But then again, only three books made both lists. In the non-fiction category, The Forever War looking at “the gaping wounds of Iraq and Afghanistan” by reporter Dexter Filkins was recommended by both sets of editors. In the fiction category, the book 2666 by Robert Bolano who died in 2003 made both lists along with Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lapiri. Her book traces the life of Bengali families finding their way in America while Bolano’s book which tells the story of the killings of hundreds of women in a seedy Mexican town is described as “baffling, maddening, difficult, violent, obscene, over-indulgent, way too long” and the best book of 2008.
GADGETS, GIZMOS AND GAMES: Inspector Gadget would have loved 2008. Okay, as much as I thought the solar panel that fit on the top of the Prius Hybrid was way cool, this is a newsletter about media things. So, forget the solar panel and the electric powered motorcycle and the meticulously engineered Embody chair. Instead, let’s talk about Fast Company’s recommendations for the Panasonic P2 HD camera (which, BTW, the Grady College has bought), the ASUS EEE 9c1000 miniature netbook, the Sony XEL incredibly flat screen TV, the FLIP Mino mini-camera that is Facebook friendly, and the Lenovo Ideapad S10 computer. Or, instead, we could look at Wired.com’s counter gadgetry, which is similar but different. For example, instead of the solar panel for the Toyota Prius Hybrid, Wired likes the Honda Insight Hybrid. Or, to get a little fancier, instead of the Canon DSLR, the folks at Wired like Nikon D90. Instead of the Flip, Wired folks like the Kodak Z16 mini-cam. Instead of the Asus, the wired editors (doesn’t that sound like an oxymoron?) like the MSI Wind. BUT… BUT… if you really want to be cool in the gadget world, you need to get yourself a Chumby which does streaming video along with streaming music along with weather and news, all in a Wi-Fi connection that sits on your bedside table. (Side note -- This is the one I was going to buy for my son-in-law for Christmas but couldn’t find.)
Despite all the hoopla about Guitar Hero, the number one mobile game is the old standby Tetris with nearly double the share of revenue (7% vs. 3.6%), according to Nielsen. The rarely mentioned Bejeweled puzzle game is #2 (at 4%) ahead of GH. In fact most of the so-called mobile games are old standbys – Wheel of Fortune, PAC-MAN, The Oregon Trail, Ms. PAC-MAN and Tetris Mania. The popular TV show, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader, also made it to the top ten list as a game. Now, here’s the kicker. The #1 PC Game title in the U.S. is World of Warcraft with slightly more than 7% of the total audience. No great surprise there, BUT the average player spends 671 minutes a week playing the game. That’s more than 11 hours a week. The next highest in terms of minutes played is Runescape (451 minutes – 7 ½ hours). What may be a predictor of the future, Runescape also scored as the number five top search item in the Yahoo top ten search list for 2008. As a side note, the Japanese manga (comic or cartoon) Naruto came in at #7 on the search list. And as a footnote to all this, a study by Deloitte titled State of the Media Democracy found that video games, once frowned upon by parents, are becoming ‘family time.’
THINGS THEY MISSED: Oddly I didn’t see as much as I would have expected in all the 2008 reviews about Widgets or Cloud Computing. As a personal aside, these are major developments (IMHO – In My Humble Opinion) that seeded this year and will blossom next. A development that may have come a little late to make the year in review articles possibly, but which I have to note: the announcement by the Christian Science Monitor that it will switch from print to a purely online edition coupled with the announcement by the Detroit newspapers that they are cutting their print versions to three days a week and replacing it with a digital version. But more on all that in next week’s edition of MFM in which we will look at the predictions and prognostications for 2009.
Showing posts with label MySpace. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MySpace. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, April 30, 2007
Message From Michael -- April 30, 2007
THE TWO DIGITAL DIVIDES
THE WORLD’S MOST VALUABLE BRANDS
MEDIA VIOLENCE
MYSPACE NEWS FOLLOW UP
THE WORLD TRADE DIVIDE
COCKTAIL CHATTER
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 newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
THE TWO DIGITAL DIVIDES: One is in the U.S. – between the rich and poor, the urban and rural, the have’s and have not’s. The other is between the U.S. and the rest of the world. That last one has become so touchy that the U.S. House of Representatives AND the U.S. Senate are holding committee hearings into why so many countries have jumped ahead of the U.S. in terms of broadband penetration. Using figures supplied by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the chairman of the committee, Senator Daniel Inouye says the U.S. has dropped from 4th in the world to 12th and now to 15th in terms of broadband penetration per 100 population. Denmark ranks #1 with 31.9 subscribers per 100 inhabitants, followed by the Netherlands, Iceland, Korea, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Canada, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, France, Japan and then the U.S. at 15, just ahead of Australia, Austria, Germany, Spain and Italy. Yet at the same time it should be noted that with 58 Million broadband subscribers, the U.S. alone accounts for nearly a third (29%) of the total broadband subscribers in the OECD. Japan with 25 Million is second.
The head of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association argued that it didn’t make sense to compare the larger and more dispersed U.S. to countries whose population density is so much higher and so much more concentrated, so that distribution by broadband is easier. And the OECD figures bear that out… to a degree. The U.S. has a population density of 32 people per square kilometer compared to Denmark’s 126 and the Netherlands 400 and Korea’s 485. Of course, that doesn’t quite explain why Norway with 14, or Finland with 16, Sweden with 20 or Canada with 3 inhabitants per square kilometer still beat the U.S.
As to that other digital divide, NCTA head Kyle McSlarrow testified in committee that broadband is available to 93% of households that could access cable TV service, but that for “economic, cultural and demographic” reasons, many did not. He told the committee that a quarter of Americans (26%) still do not own a computer and that one in five (21%) for some “inexplicable” reason still relied on dial-up even though broadband was available to them.
The head of the group Connected Nation says Kentucky is “on track” to be the first state with 100% broadband coverage. Using a public-private partnership, the group has increased broadband availability and adoption and the ownership of computers at home through programs like its so-called No Child Left Offline. Group head Brian Mefford told the committee that the economic impact has been enormous with an increase in the number of graduates who stay in Kentucky, an increase in the number of out of state graduates remaining in Kentucky and an increase in doctoral degree students staying in Kentucky.
THE WORLD’S MOST VALUABLE BRANDS: It’s official. Google has knocked off Microsoft to become King of the Mountain when it comes to brand rankings. Market research firm Millward Brown says Coca Cola was #2 with Microsoft now #3. Wal Mart came in #4. The top-ranked brand from a non U.S.-based company, according to the report carried on CNN Money, was China Mobile. Nope, me either. Never heard of it. But a visit to its website indicates its total subscriber base is 316 Million.
MEDIA VIOLENCE: I’m sorry but no cute headline on this one. Yes, I know you may have seen this already but I’m including it this week because I thought you might have been as confused as I was – that there was not just one but two reports by two federal agencies scolding the media for not doing more. The Federal Trade Commission found that while the movie, music and video game industries “generally complied with their own voluntary standards” when it come to ratings and label, they still were marketing the violent material on television shows with substantial teen audiences; but interestingly and more critically, the FCC was critical of the viral marketing through social networking sites like MySpace and YouTube.
Meanwhile the Federal Communication Commission re-asserted that exposure to violence in the media increases aggressive behavior and that the various industry efforts to reduce exposure have had “limited effectiveness.” The report says that by the time most children begin the first grade, they will have spent the equivalent of three school years in front of the television set. And the average American household has the television set turned on 8 hours and 11 minutes a day.
The commission said its mandate was to determine what negative effects on children are caused by the cumulative viewing of excessively violent program; what constitutional limits are there on the government’s ability to restrict such programming; and is it in the public interest for the government to adopt a definition of “excessively violent” programming harmful to children. And the answer, with some qualifications and disclaimers, appears to be – Yes, Yes and Yes. FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin notes that there is a big difference between “real life violence shown in a news story (and) fictional violence depicted for purposes of ‘entertainment.’” (He’s the one who put the word in quotes.) And, yes, this probably deserves more in-depth reporting for a possible later MfM.
MYSPACE NEWS FOLLOW UP: You’ve probably heard/ read that MySpace has adopted a news aggregation service with online users voting for their top story. Of course you have, because it was in last week’s MfM. Anyway, taking the same advice I give my clients – I followed up the story. Well, let’s just say the BBC, MSNBC, CNN or any other news organization for that matter, doesn’t have to worry. Nobody cares! I checked nearly a hundred of the news stories posted. Out of 20 different categories and more than 100 stories, ONLY ONE got a vote – a single vote. And that was the story about Elton John building an art gallery at home. Coalition forces kill 130 Taliban fighters – 0 votes. Iran to attend key meeting on stabilizing Iraq – 0 votes. Cardinals Hancock dies in truck crash – 0 votes. And so on and so on and so on. It may raise questions about MySpace’s plans to hold a so-called Presidential Primary online. Although as a further factoid, Barack Obama has more than 90,000 friends on MySpace, way ahead of John Edwards at 17,000, Hillary Clinton at nearly 8,000, John McCain at nearly 4,000 and Rudy Giuliani – no, sorry, his friend list is listed as private. You must be invited to see his profile.
IT’S NOT HARD BEING GREEN: Despite what Kermit the Frog says. Media trend letter Cynopsis reports more than a dozen “go green” efforts launched after last week’s Earth Day including The National Geographic, Hearst Magazines, the CW, and more. On a personal note, as I sat in the veterinary clinic, more than half a dozen of the magazines from Forbes to Outdoors to Atlantic all had front page articles on the environment. Which all seems to validate the MfM beginning of the year survey which indicated that the environment was going to be the hot topic (no pun intended) of the year.
THE WORLD TRADE DIVIDE: Okay, okay, I know what you’re saying – enough already with Billionaire Warren Buffett. However, considering the lead article in this week’s MfM, I thought his thoughts on world trade are apropos. The Billionaire says he is a “fervent” believer in what he calls REAL trade – “the more the better for both us and the world.” He defines Real Trade as purchases that are reciprocated by sales. In other words, the U.S. sells a Billion dollars in computers to China and China sells the U.S. a Billion dollars in cars. Buffett says we had $1.44 Trillion of this “honest-to-God” trade in 2006, but we had $0.76 Trillion in PSEUDO trade – purchases not reciprocated by sales. The result is that the U.S. is transferring ownership of its assets or I.O.U.’s to other countries. Adding to the problem is that for the first time since 1915, Buffett says, the “investment income” account of the U.S. turned negative in 2006. Foreigners now earn more on their U.S. investments than we do on our investments abroad. “In effect, we’ve used up our bank account and turned to our credit card,” he writes. We’re wealthy enough and have behaved responsibly in the past so that despite all this, Buffett says, Americans will live better ten or twenty years from now. But at some point in the future, he says U.S. workers and voters will find this annual “tribute” so onerous that there will be a severe political backlash and any idea of a “soft landing” out of this is “wishful thinking.”
COCKTAIL CHATTER: A report by research firm eMarketer says the average age of persons who download video from the Internet is 39.4. User generated videos made up 47% of the total online video market in the U.S. in 2006, according to media analyst firm Screen Digest. By 2010, the firm predicts more than half (55%) of all video content consumed online in the U.S. will be user generated, representing 44 Billion video streams. More than 70% of Americans 15 to 34 years old are active users of social networks, according to TNS Media Intelligence. The Fox network show House was the most watched broadcast prime-time show in DVR playback, according to Nielsen Media Research.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail newsconsultant@aol.com 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.
THE WORLD’S MOST VALUABLE BRANDS
MEDIA VIOLENCE
MYSPACE NEWS FOLLOW UP
THE WORLD TRADE DIVIDE
COCKTAIL CHATTER
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 newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
THE TWO DIGITAL DIVIDES: One is in the U.S. – between the rich and poor, the urban and rural, the have’s and have not’s. The other is between the U.S. and the rest of the world. That last one has become so touchy that the U.S. House of Representatives AND the U.S. Senate are holding committee hearings into why so many countries have jumped ahead of the U.S. in terms of broadband penetration. Using figures supplied by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the chairman of the committee, Senator Daniel Inouye says the U.S. has dropped from 4th in the world to 12th and now to 15th in terms of broadband penetration per 100 population. Denmark ranks #1 with 31.9 subscribers per 100 inhabitants, followed by the Netherlands, Iceland, Korea, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Canada, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, France, Japan and then the U.S. at 15, just ahead of Australia, Austria, Germany, Spain and Italy. Yet at the same time it should be noted that with 58 Million broadband subscribers, the U.S. alone accounts for nearly a third (29%) of the total broadband subscribers in the OECD. Japan with 25 Million is second.
The head of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association argued that it didn’t make sense to compare the larger and more dispersed U.S. to countries whose population density is so much higher and so much more concentrated, so that distribution by broadband is easier. And the OECD figures bear that out… to a degree. The U.S. has a population density of 32 people per square kilometer compared to Denmark’s 126 and the Netherlands 400 and Korea’s 485. Of course, that doesn’t quite explain why Norway with 14, or Finland with 16, Sweden with 20 or Canada with 3 inhabitants per square kilometer still beat the U.S.
As to that other digital divide, NCTA head Kyle McSlarrow testified in committee that broadband is available to 93% of households that could access cable TV service, but that for “economic, cultural and demographic” reasons, many did not. He told the committee that a quarter of Americans (26%) still do not own a computer and that one in five (21%) for some “inexplicable” reason still relied on dial-up even though broadband was available to them.
The head of the group Connected Nation says Kentucky is “on track” to be the first state with 100% broadband coverage. Using a public-private partnership, the group has increased broadband availability and adoption and the ownership of computers at home through programs like its so-called No Child Left Offline. Group head Brian Mefford told the committee that the economic impact has been enormous with an increase in the number of graduates who stay in Kentucky, an increase in the number of out of state graduates remaining in Kentucky and an increase in doctoral degree students staying in Kentucky.
THE WORLD’S MOST VALUABLE BRANDS: It’s official. Google has knocked off Microsoft to become King of the Mountain when it comes to brand rankings. Market research firm Millward Brown says Coca Cola was #2 with Microsoft now #3. Wal Mart came in #4. The top-ranked brand from a non U.S.-based company, according to the report carried on CNN Money, was China Mobile. Nope, me either. Never heard of it. But a visit to its website indicates its total subscriber base is 316 Million.
MEDIA VIOLENCE: I’m sorry but no cute headline on this one. Yes, I know you may have seen this already but I’m including it this week because I thought you might have been as confused as I was – that there was not just one but two reports by two federal agencies scolding the media for not doing more. The Federal Trade Commission found that while the movie, music and video game industries “generally complied with their own voluntary standards” when it come to ratings and label, they still were marketing the violent material on television shows with substantial teen audiences; but interestingly and more critically, the FCC was critical of the viral marketing through social networking sites like MySpace and YouTube.
Meanwhile the Federal Communication Commission re-asserted that exposure to violence in the media increases aggressive behavior and that the various industry efforts to reduce exposure have had “limited effectiveness.” The report says that by the time most children begin the first grade, they will have spent the equivalent of three school years in front of the television set. And the average American household has the television set turned on 8 hours and 11 minutes a day.
The commission said its mandate was to determine what negative effects on children are caused by the cumulative viewing of excessively violent program; what constitutional limits are there on the government’s ability to restrict such programming; and is it in the public interest for the government to adopt a definition of “excessively violent” programming harmful to children. And the answer, with some qualifications and disclaimers, appears to be – Yes, Yes and Yes. FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin notes that there is a big difference between “real life violence shown in a news story (and) fictional violence depicted for purposes of ‘entertainment.’” (He’s the one who put the word in quotes.) And, yes, this probably deserves more in-depth reporting for a possible later MfM.
MYSPACE NEWS FOLLOW UP: You’ve probably heard/ read that MySpace has adopted a news aggregation service with online users voting for their top story. Of course you have, because it was in last week’s MfM. Anyway, taking the same advice I give my clients – I followed up the story. Well, let’s just say the BBC, MSNBC, CNN or any other news organization for that matter, doesn’t have to worry. Nobody cares! I checked nearly a hundred of the news stories posted. Out of 20 different categories and more than 100 stories, ONLY ONE got a vote – a single vote. And that was the story about Elton John building an art gallery at home. Coalition forces kill 130 Taliban fighters – 0 votes. Iran to attend key meeting on stabilizing Iraq – 0 votes. Cardinals Hancock dies in truck crash – 0 votes. And so on and so on and so on. It may raise questions about MySpace’s plans to hold a so-called Presidential Primary online. Although as a further factoid, Barack Obama has more than 90,000 friends on MySpace, way ahead of John Edwards at 17,000, Hillary Clinton at nearly 8,000, John McCain at nearly 4,000 and Rudy Giuliani – no, sorry, his friend list is listed as private. You must be invited to see his profile.
IT’S NOT HARD BEING GREEN: Despite what Kermit the Frog says. Media trend letter Cynopsis reports more than a dozen “go green” efforts launched after last week’s Earth Day including The National Geographic, Hearst Magazines, the CW, and more. On a personal note, as I sat in the veterinary clinic, more than half a dozen of the magazines from Forbes to Outdoors to Atlantic all had front page articles on the environment. Which all seems to validate the MfM beginning of the year survey which indicated that the environment was going to be the hot topic (no pun intended) of the year.
THE WORLD TRADE DIVIDE: Okay, okay, I know what you’re saying – enough already with Billionaire Warren Buffett. However, considering the lead article in this week’s MfM, I thought his thoughts on world trade are apropos. The Billionaire says he is a “fervent” believer in what he calls REAL trade – “the more the better for both us and the world.” He defines Real Trade as purchases that are reciprocated by sales. In other words, the U.S. sells a Billion dollars in computers to China and China sells the U.S. a Billion dollars in cars. Buffett says we had $1.44 Trillion of this “honest-to-God” trade in 2006, but we had $0.76 Trillion in PSEUDO trade – purchases not reciprocated by sales. The result is that the U.S. is transferring ownership of its assets or I.O.U.’s to other countries. Adding to the problem is that for the first time since 1915, Buffett says, the “investment income” account of the U.S. turned negative in 2006. Foreigners now earn more on their U.S. investments than we do on our investments abroad. “In effect, we’ve used up our bank account and turned to our credit card,” he writes. We’re wealthy enough and have behaved responsibly in the past so that despite all this, Buffett says, Americans will live better ten or twenty years from now. But at some point in the future, he says U.S. workers and voters will find this annual “tribute” so onerous that there will be a severe political backlash and any idea of a “soft landing” out of this is “wishful thinking.”
COCKTAIL CHATTER: A report by research firm eMarketer says the average age of persons who download video from the Internet is 39.4. User generated videos made up 47% of the total online video market in the U.S. in 2006, according to media analyst firm Screen Digest. By 2010, the firm predicts more than half (55%) of all video content consumed online in the U.S. will be user generated, representing 44 Billion video streams. More than 70% of Americans 15 to 34 years old are active users of social networks, according to TNS Media Intelligence. The Fox network show House was the most watched broadcast prime-time show in DVR playback, according to Nielsen Media Research.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail newsconsultant@aol.com 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.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Message from Michael -- March 26, 2007
A ROSE BY ANOTHER OTHER NAME
WOULD IT SMELL SO SWEET
A ROSE IS A ROSE IS A ROSE
THE WAR OF THE ROSES
MICHAEL’S MILESTONES
COCKTAIL CHATTER
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 newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME: Call it citizen journalism… consumer generated media… user generated content… customer made… open-source culture… curated consumerism… pro-am (as in professional-amateur) production… or crowdsourcing. The point is the day of top down journalism, like top down management, is being transformed into bottom up journalism. In the past two weeks, I’ve seen numerous articles about the growing partnership between viewers/readers/listeners/consumers/citizens – the volunteers, as one put it – and the professionals. The latest venture Assignment Zero comes from Wired Magazine, working with NewAssignment.net created by New York University professor Jay Rosen. He, by the way, gets the quote of the week, if not the month, award when he talks about “the people formerly known as the audience.” Crowdsourcing, as defined by Wikipedia, is a neologism for a business model in which the work of an employee is outsourced to a large group of people through an open call on the Internet. Or put more simply, you enlist the aid of your viewers/readers/listeners to provide ideas, act as resources, help with research on news stories. In the case of Assignment Zero (zero.newassignment.net), the idea is to use crowdsourcing aka “the wisdom of the crowd” to define the crowdsourcing journalistic model. In case you think this is another soon-to-pass fad, you may recall a previous MfM in which we noted that the Gannett group is re-fashioning its 90 newsrooms into ‘information centers’ using this model.
WOULD IT SMELL SO SWEET: Not according to a poll by Zogby International which showed that three-quarters (72%) of Americans said they were dissatisfied with the state of Journalism today. And almost the same number (74%) said citizen journalism will play a vital role in the future of American journalism. Almost the same number (76%) said the Internet has had a positive influence on the overall quality of journalism. The poll also showed that more than half (55%) said bloggers are important to the future of American journalism, and an equal number (53%) said the rise of Internet-based media posed the biggest opportunity for future journalism. Tell that to Dan Rather. In a speech to the interactive group South by Southwest and an accompanying interview, Rather talked about the potential of the blogosphere and opined (you don’t get to use that word very often) that bloggers who ask questions and do interviews qualify as journalists. Just to put it all in some perspective, back to the Zogby poll, three quarters (72%) of those surveyed said journalism is important to their community and while four out of five (81%) said the Internet was an important source of news, but only 30% said blogs were an important source.
A ROSE IS A ROSE IS A ROSE: Let me give you some variations on the theme of consumer generated media (CGM), along with some related and semi-related trends. Website Trendwatching.com notes a couple of examples, including book publisher Penguin crowdsourcing a new novel, Peugeot inviting designs for concept cars, and Kraft inviting people to ‘innovate with us’ with new products. Current TV has launched in Britain on BskyB and Virgin Media. VH1 has launched an Internet-TV hybrid which is also a hybrid of professional and amateur (CGM) content called acceptable.tv. A Los Angeles based start-up, MeatTeam.tv has launched an alternative to the company newsletter by helping corporations launch their own internal TV network using employee-generated content.
THE WAR OF THE ROSES: Okay, I know I’m beating a dead horse with this theme, but it’s actually true in this case. The 15th Century war pitted the two major houses, Lancaster and York, to see who would rule England. This latest war pits the major Internet players, Yahoo and MySpace against Google, to see who will rule the video world. And just like in Medieval England, people are drawing sides. NBC is joining forces with some-time rival News Corp., and News Corp-owned MySpace to do battle with Google and YouTube for control of the online video world. NBC and News Corp have enlisted Time Warner’s AOL and Yahoo as allies in its battle to create “the largest Internet video distribution network ever assembled.” Aside from the obvious, the other big difference is that the new site will be advertiser supported and will, the corporations emphasize, respect copyright laws. All of the news stories about the new online video service also note that Viacom, owners of CBS, has sued YouTube although, oddly enough, you will recall that CBS (a subsidiary of Viacom) has paired with Google and YouTube in the past. But there is no indication whether CBS or ABC will join in the venture. The New York Times article on the proposal noted this as a key question, which limits the new online video site’s offerings and draws comparisons to other earlier such Web ventures that failed. The Los Angeles Times article on the joint venture also noted Hollywood’s “dismal track record” in creating joint ventures, but says the players in this case have little choice but to band together against the Google behemoth. Industry magazine Broadcasting and Cable noted that both networks will continue to stream episodes of their own shows on their own websites but the two networks have not figured out which content will be most prominently displayed on the joint website. TV Week notes in its article that YouTube is well regarded for its ease of use and that YouTube receives more web traffic than the combined sites for 56 networks, including ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.
Sub-developments: Yahoo has announced a partnership with MTV to launch a co-branded website using User Generated Media (another variation of the buzz phrases) tied to the MTV movie awards. MySpace is expected to join the aggregator business collecting news from various news sites and blogs, and then having users comment and rate them. YouTube has announced its own Academy Awards of user-created videos with categories – most creative, most inspirational, most adorable along with best comedy, best music and best commentary. The winners will be announced today (Monday) at youtube/ytawards.com. Copyright-challenged YouTube has spawned a knock-off site, Delutube, which shows the videos which YouTube takes off its site.
MICHAEL’S MILESTONES: This is a new addition to MfM. An occasional segment on something that I think will mark a milestone, a tipping point, in the media world. We kick it off with a note about the movie 300. Not just because it made more money in its first weekend ($71 Million) than it cost to make ($65 Million); not just because it was the third highest rated R movie release ever; not just because it is based on an ancient Greek story; not just because critics hated it and movie-goers loved it. But because it is predominantly a digital creation (ergo, its low cost of production) that is not a digitally created cartoon.A Semi-Milestone: Actually I thought this belonged higher up when we were talking about the various news permutations, but it qualifies here, too, as a semi-milestone. CBS has launched a new form of programming/slash/journalism called “webumentaries” which combine reporting and interviews with dramatic staging to re-create important events. The melding of journalism and entertainment in low budget online productions is an “unconventional pairing of fiction and news,” as the Los Angeles Times put it. And before you dismiss it entirely, the producer of the new projects called Countdown is Susan Zirinsky, the woman who was the real-life, hard-nosed inspiration for the movie character Holly Hunter in Broadcast News.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: Just days after Pope Bendedict XVI criticized the media for its “destructive” influence, the Vatican announced it will launch its own TV network titled H2O which will air in seven languages. Six years ago in 2007, more people (74%) owned traditional cameras than digital cameras (24%). By 2005 more households had digital cameras (60%) than traditional cameras (51%). By the end of last year (2006), Jupiter Research reports that 65% of online households had digital cameras compared to 48% for traditional cameras. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of Gen Nexters – Americans in the 18 to 15 age group – told a recent Pew Research survey that they received financial help from their parents during the past 12 months and nearly half (46%) said they depend on their parents or other family members for assistance.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail newsconsultant@aol.com 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.
WOULD IT SMELL SO SWEET
A ROSE IS A ROSE IS A ROSE
THE WAR OF THE ROSES
MICHAEL’S MILESTONES
COCKTAIL CHATTER
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 newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME: Call it citizen journalism… consumer generated media… user generated content… customer made… open-source culture… curated consumerism… pro-am (as in professional-amateur) production… or crowdsourcing. The point is the day of top down journalism, like top down management, is being transformed into bottom up journalism. In the past two weeks, I’ve seen numerous articles about the growing partnership between viewers/readers/listeners/consumers/citizens – the volunteers, as one put it – and the professionals. The latest venture Assignment Zero comes from Wired Magazine, working with NewAssignment.net created by New York University professor Jay Rosen. He, by the way, gets the quote of the week, if not the month, award when he talks about “the people formerly known as the audience.” Crowdsourcing, as defined by Wikipedia, is a neologism for a business model in which the work of an employee is outsourced to a large group of people through an open call on the Internet. Or put more simply, you enlist the aid of your viewers/readers/listeners to provide ideas, act as resources, help with research on news stories. In the case of Assignment Zero (zero.newassignment.net), the idea is to use crowdsourcing aka “the wisdom of the crowd” to define the crowdsourcing journalistic model. In case you think this is another soon-to-pass fad, you may recall a previous MfM in which we noted that the Gannett group is re-fashioning its 90 newsrooms into ‘information centers’ using this model.
WOULD IT SMELL SO SWEET: Not according to a poll by Zogby International which showed that three-quarters (72%) of Americans said they were dissatisfied with the state of Journalism today. And almost the same number (74%) said citizen journalism will play a vital role in the future of American journalism. Almost the same number (76%) said the Internet has had a positive influence on the overall quality of journalism. The poll also showed that more than half (55%) said bloggers are important to the future of American journalism, and an equal number (53%) said the rise of Internet-based media posed the biggest opportunity for future journalism. Tell that to Dan Rather. In a speech to the interactive group South by Southwest and an accompanying interview, Rather talked about the potential of the blogosphere and opined (you don’t get to use that word very often) that bloggers who ask questions and do interviews qualify as journalists. Just to put it all in some perspective, back to the Zogby poll, three quarters (72%) of those surveyed said journalism is important to their community and while four out of five (81%) said the Internet was an important source of news, but only 30% said blogs were an important source.
A ROSE IS A ROSE IS A ROSE: Let me give you some variations on the theme of consumer generated media (CGM), along with some related and semi-related trends. Website Trendwatching.com notes a couple of examples, including book publisher Penguin crowdsourcing a new novel, Peugeot inviting designs for concept cars, and Kraft inviting people to ‘innovate with us’ with new products. Current TV has launched in Britain on BskyB and Virgin Media. VH1 has launched an Internet-TV hybrid which is also a hybrid of professional and amateur (CGM) content called acceptable.tv. A Los Angeles based start-up, MeatTeam.tv has launched an alternative to the company newsletter by helping corporations launch their own internal TV network using employee-generated content.
THE WAR OF THE ROSES: Okay, I know I’m beating a dead horse with this theme, but it’s actually true in this case. The 15th Century war pitted the two major houses, Lancaster and York, to see who would rule England. This latest war pits the major Internet players, Yahoo and MySpace against Google, to see who will rule the video world. And just like in Medieval England, people are drawing sides. NBC is joining forces with some-time rival News Corp., and News Corp-owned MySpace to do battle with Google and YouTube for control of the online video world. NBC and News Corp have enlisted Time Warner’s AOL and Yahoo as allies in its battle to create “the largest Internet video distribution network ever assembled.” Aside from the obvious, the other big difference is that the new site will be advertiser supported and will, the corporations emphasize, respect copyright laws. All of the news stories about the new online video service also note that Viacom, owners of CBS, has sued YouTube although, oddly enough, you will recall that CBS (a subsidiary of Viacom) has paired with Google and YouTube in the past. But there is no indication whether CBS or ABC will join in the venture. The New York Times article on the proposal noted this as a key question, which limits the new online video site’s offerings and draws comparisons to other earlier such Web ventures that failed. The Los Angeles Times article on the joint venture also noted Hollywood’s “dismal track record” in creating joint ventures, but says the players in this case have little choice but to band together against the Google behemoth. Industry magazine Broadcasting and Cable noted that both networks will continue to stream episodes of their own shows on their own websites but the two networks have not figured out which content will be most prominently displayed on the joint website. TV Week notes in its article that YouTube is well regarded for its ease of use and that YouTube receives more web traffic than the combined sites for 56 networks, including ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox.
Sub-developments: Yahoo has announced a partnership with MTV to launch a co-branded website using User Generated Media (another variation of the buzz phrases) tied to the MTV movie awards. MySpace is expected to join the aggregator business collecting news from various news sites and blogs, and then having users comment and rate them. YouTube has announced its own Academy Awards of user-created videos with categories – most creative, most inspirational, most adorable along with best comedy, best music and best commentary. The winners will be announced today (Monday) at youtube/ytawards.com. Copyright-challenged YouTube has spawned a knock-off site, Delutube, which shows the videos which YouTube takes off its site.
MICHAEL’S MILESTONES: This is a new addition to MfM. An occasional segment on something that I think will mark a milestone, a tipping point, in the media world. We kick it off with a note about the movie 300. Not just because it made more money in its first weekend ($71 Million) than it cost to make ($65 Million); not just because it was the third highest rated R movie release ever; not just because it is based on an ancient Greek story; not just because critics hated it and movie-goers loved it. But because it is predominantly a digital creation (ergo, its low cost of production) that is not a digitally created cartoon.A Semi-Milestone: Actually I thought this belonged higher up when we were talking about the various news permutations, but it qualifies here, too, as a semi-milestone. CBS has launched a new form of programming/slash/journalism called “webumentaries” which combine reporting and interviews with dramatic staging to re-create important events. The melding of journalism and entertainment in low budget online productions is an “unconventional pairing of fiction and news,” as the Los Angeles Times put it. And before you dismiss it entirely, the producer of the new projects called Countdown is Susan Zirinsky, the woman who was the real-life, hard-nosed inspiration for the movie character Holly Hunter in Broadcast News.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: Just days after Pope Bendedict XVI criticized the media for its “destructive” influence, the Vatican announced it will launch its own TV network titled H2O which will air in seven languages. Six years ago in 2007, more people (74%) owned traditional cameras than digital cameras (24%). By 2005 more households had digital cameras (60%) than traditional cameras (51%). By the end of last year (2006), Jupiter Research reports that 65% of online households had digital cameras compared to 48% for traditional cameras. Nearly three-quarters (73%) of Gen Nexters – Americans in the 18 to 15 age group – told a recent Pew Research survey that they received financial help from their parents during the past 12 months and nearly half (46%) said they depend on their parents or other family members for assistance.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail newsconsultant@aol.com 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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
